The value of Halal & Kosher meat to the UK economy
The government statistics, FSA slaughter survey, Parliament, AHDB and the University of Huddersfield research, because there is an important distinction between meat produced, meat slaughtered, meat consumed, retail sales and economic value added.
The headline finding is already quite significant:
Halal is not a marginal part of the UK meat industry. The best current research puts halal meat and poultry at about £1.7 billion at slaughter, around 15% of the UK meat and poultry sector's slaughter value. AHDB/NIQ separately estimates £823 million was spent by consumers on halal meat in 2023.
But there is no equivalent official Government figure for the value of the kosher meat market, and Government explicitly says it does not hold enough data to calculate the proportion of meat consumed in the UK that is halal. That distinction is crucial if you want to make a robust case.
1. The UK meat industry — the baseline
The latest full-year Government figures are for 2025.
Defra reports:
| Meat | UK production 2025 | Farm/slaughter value 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Poultry | 2.001m tonnes | £3.367bn |
| Pig meat | 937,000 tonnes | £1.828bn |
| Beef & veal | 898,000 tonnes | £5.084bn |
| Sheep/mutton/lamb | 282,000 tonnes | £1.867bn |
| Other meat | included in total | included in total |
| Total | 4.117m tonnes | £12.150bn |
So poultry represents almost half of UK meat production by weight, while beef has the largest value because of its much higher value per tonne.
There is therefore a £12.15bn domestic meat-production baseline against which the halal figure needs to be understood.
2. But £12.15bn is NOT the value of meat sold in shops
This is one of the most important points.
There are several different economic measurements:
Farm → slaughter → processor → wholesaler → retailer/restaurant → consumer
A £1 piece of meat at the farm/slaughter stage can ultimately be worth considerably more after processing, packaging, transport, wholesale, retail and catering.
Government's food-chain statistics show the enormous scale of the wider food economy:
- UK agri-food GVA: £162.3bn in 2024
- Food and drink manufacturing GVA: £39.3bn
- Wholesale: £18.3bn
- Retail: £44.1bn
- Non-residential catering: £46.1bn
- 4.1 million people worked in the wider UK agri-food sector in 2025.
So we should not say that halal contributes £1.7bn to UK GDP.
The accurate statement is:
Halal meat and poultry have an estimated £1.7bn value at slaughter.
That is turnover/value at an early point in the supply chain, not GVA or GDP contribution.
3. The UK's meat trade is also enormous
The latest Government figures show that in 2025 the UK imported:
£9.314bn of meat and meat preparations
and exported:
£2.362bn.
That produced a meat trade deficit of approximately £6.95bn.
For 2024, Defra gives the following individual meat trade figures:
| Category | UK exports 2024 | UK imports 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Poultry meat | £212m | £1.644bn |
| Poultry meat products | £111m | £1.678bn |
| Beef & veal | £568m | £1.388bn |
| Lamb & mutton | £583m | £326m |
| Pork | £251m | £954m |
| Bacon & ham | £32m | £656m |
These are HMRC trade values.
That matters enormously to the halal question because halal is not just a domestic consumption market.
The UK exports halal meat.
AHDB specifically notes that halal certification is required for exports to numerous markets in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
4. Now the important part — HALAL
There are actually three different numbers that need to be kept separate.
A. Number of animals entering halal production
The Government has a very important current figure.
In 2024:
1.035 billion animals were processed in English and Welsh slaughterhouses.
Of these:
214.6 million animals were slaughtered to produce halal meat.
That is:
20.7% of all animals processed.
Of those 214.6 million halal animals:
27.0 million were slaughtered without stunning.
That represents:
2.6% of all animals processed.
These are official Government figures supplied to Parliament by Defra.
That distinction is extremely important.
20.7% halal does NOT mean 20.7% was non-stun.
Most halal slaughter is stunned.
5. What does the FSA actually show?
The 2024 FSA Slaughter Sector Survey is the most important official dataset on this subject.
It covered all slaughterhouses operating in England and Wales during 12–18 February 2024.
The results are striking.
Cattle
- Standard: 94.6%
- Halal stunned: 3.5%
- Halal non-stun: 0.4%
- Shechita/kosher: 1.5%
Therefore:
5.4% of cattle slaughter was religious slaughter.
Sheep
This is where halal becomes particularly significant:
- Standard: 17.6%
- Halal stunned: 53.6%
- Halal non-stun: 28.3%
- Shechita: 0.5%
Therefore:
82.4% of sheep slaughtered in the survey week was religious slaughter.
And the overwhelming majority of that was halal.
This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence available for the economic importance of halal to the British sheep industry.
6. Chicken
For meat chickens:
- Standard: 78.3%
- Halal stunned: 18.9%
- Halal non-stun: 2.5%
- Shechita: 0.3%
Therefore:
21.7% of meat chickens were slaughtered for religious markets.
And:
88% of halal meat chickens were stunned.
That latter point is confirmed separately by the FSA's current public guidance.
So the statement:
"Halal meat means animals are not stunned"
is factually wrong.
The official evidence shows that most halal production is from stunned animals.
7. Halal's economic value
This is where the University of Huddersfield research becomes particularly useful.
The 2024 study by:
- John Lever
- Shabbir Dastgir
- Awal Fuseini
estimated the value of the halal meat and poultry sector at slaughter at approximately £1.7 billion.
Their estimated total UK meat and poultry market at that point was approximately £11bn.
Therefore:
Halal ≈ 15% of UK meat and poultry slaughter value.
The researchers projected that if the 15% share remained constant, halal slaughter value could approach £2bn by 2028.
There is a particularly interesting breakdown.
8. Halal sheep/lamb is much bigger than the overall halal percentage suggests
The research estimated:
£810 million
of halal sheep/lamb value at slaughter.
Against:
£1.1 billion
for the overall sheep market.
That produces:
approximately 74% of sheep-sector value.
The researchers therefore conclude that halal is exceptionally important to the British sheep industry.
AHDB independently provides another important measure:
Muslims account for approximately 30% of UK lamb sales by volume.
That is particularly notable because Muslims are approximately 6.5% of the England and Wales population.
So the Muslim/halal market is disproportionately important to lamb.
9. Halal chicken
The Huddersfield/HMC research estimated:
£700m
of halal poultry value at slaughter in 2022.
The overall poultry market was approximately:
£5.3bn.
So their estimate was approximately:
13.1% of poultry slaughter value.
That is consistent with the FSA's finding that approximately one-fifth of meat chickens in the survey were going into halal production.
10. Halal beef
The same research estimated that in 2022 approximately:
- 4% of cattle went into stunned halal
- effectively 0% into halal non-stun
- approximately 4% of calves into stunned halal
- approximately 1% of calves into non-stun halal.
So halal's economic significance is not evenly distributed across species.
It is especially powerful in:
1. Sheep/lamb/mutton
2. Chicken/poultry
3. Beef
11. Consumer spending — a completely different halal number
AHDB's 2024 consumer research gives us another very useful figure.
AHDB and NIQ estimate:
£823 million was spent on halal meat in the UK in 2023.
That is consumer expenditure, rather than slaughter value.
This figure is much lower than £1.7bn, but that does not mean one of the figures is necessarily wrong.
They measure different things.
| Measurement | Figure | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Halal meat/poultry at slaughter | ~£1.7bn | Estimated value entering the meat supply chain |
| Halal meat consumer spending | £823m | Estimated consumer spending on halal meat |
| Halal sheep/lamb at slaughter | ~£810m | Estimated slaughter value |
| Halal poultry at slaughter | ~£700m | Estimated slaughter value |
The £1.7bn study is an industry/economic analysis; the £823m figure is an AHDB/NIQ consumer-market estimate.
12. KOSHER — this is where the evidence becomes much weaker
This is extremely important if you're going to publish the research.
There is no official Government figure for the value of the UK kosher meat market.
The Government does record Shechita slaughter within its slaughter survey, but it does not publish a national "kosher meat market value" equivalent to the halal estimate.
The FSA confirms:
All kosher meat comes from animals slaughtered without stunning.
The Government's current rules allow religious slaughter without stunning for:
- cattle/calves
- sheep
- goats
- poultry
provided the religious and legal conditions are met.
13. What do we know about kosher numbers?
A University of Huddersfield factsheet on the UK market reports an estimate of approximately:
2.1 million animals per year
being slaughtered for kosher meat.
It cites the London Board of Shechita as supervising approximately:
- 90,000 cattle
- 90,000 sheep
- 1.5 million poultry
annually.
However, the researchers explicitly state that there are no official statistics on Shechita slaughter and that the value of the UK kosher market is unclear.
That is therefore a secondary estimate, not a Government statistic.
We should not present the 2.1m figure as though Defra measured it.
14. What the 2024 Government survey tells us about kosher
The FSA survey recorded Shechita as:
| Species | Shechita |
|---|---|
| Cattle | 1.5% |
| Calves | 0% |
| Sheep | 0.5% |
| Goats | 0% |
| Pigs | 0% |
| Meat chickens | 0.3% |
| Spent hens | 0% |
| Turkeys | 1.3% |
| Other poultry | 0.3% |
But again, these are percentages from the survey week, not a published annual kosher market value.
15. An important distinction: HALAL ≠ NON-STUN
This needs to be made absolutely clear.
There are effectively several categories:
Conventional stunned
Animal is stunned before slaughter and slaughtered through the normal process.
Halal stunned
Animal is slaughtered according to halal requirements but is stunned beforehand.
Halal non-stun
Animal is slaughtered according to halal requirements without prior stunning.
Shechita/Kosher
Animal is slaughtered according to Jewish Shechita requirements without prior stunning.
So:
Halal ≠ non-stun.
And:
non-stun ≠ halal.
Shechita is also non-stun, but it is not halal.
The 2024 FSA figures demonstrate this clearly.
16. The really interesting issue — where does the halal meat go?
The Government's survey shows that slaughterhouses distribute meat through:
- supermarkets
- wholesalers
- butchers
- restaurants
- other UK outlets
- export channels.
For meat chickens, for example, the survey found domestic distribution going approximately:
- 35% supermarkets
- 39% wholesale traders
- 8% other UK destinations
- 14% unspecified
- with additional export routes.
This matters because the halal economy isn't simply:
Muslim consumer → halal butcher.
It is a much larger supply chain.
17. Halal also supports exports
This is another area where halal contributes to the wider UK economy.
The UK already exports halal meat to markets including:
- UAE
- Kuwait
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- European markets
- other Muslim-majority/import markets.
Parliament's International Trade Committee recorded evidence from AHDB's senior halal manager that the UK already exports a substantial amount of halal meat to Gulf markets.
The HMC/Huddersfield study also identifies the Gulf market as increasingly important for British sheep meat.
So halal has an economic effect beyond domestic Muslim consumption.
18. The sheep industry is probably the strongest economic argument
This is where I think your research could become particularly powerful.
The UK sheep industry is heavily dependent on halal demand.
The research estimates:
Halal sheep/lamb: ~£810m
versus:
Total sheep/lamb sector: ~£1.1bn
= ~74%.
And AHDB estimates Muslims account for:
30% of UK lamb sales by volume.
That means halal demand is not simply creating an additional niche market.
It is helping sustain an existing agricultural industry.
The Huddersfield research quotes an NFU interviewee saying that without the halal sector the UK sheep industry could contract by a third or more. That is an interviewee assessment, not an official Government forecast, so I would label it accordingly rather than present it as fact.
19. What about the wider UK economy?
Here we need to be disciplined.
The £1.7bn halal figure does not mean:
"Halal contributes £1.7bn to GDP."
Instead, the defensible economic argument is:
Halal creates economic activity through:
- livestock farming
- livestock markets
- haulage
- abattoirs
- slaughter workers
- veterinary/official inspection
- halal certification
- meat processing
- cold storage
- wholesalers
- specialist butchers
- supermarkets
- restaurants
- takeaway businesses
- exports
- packaging
- logistics
- associated professional services.
The UK Government itself values the entire food-chain economy at £162.3bn GVA.
But there is no official Government satellite account saying "halal GVA = X".
That is a major data gap.
20. Kosher's economic contribution
For kosher, we can establish that it creates economic activity through the same supply chain:
farm → livestock market → abattoir → Shochet → kosher supervision → processing → distribution → kosher butcher/supermarket → restaurants/consumers.
But the available evidence does not support a robust national figure for kosher meat's contribution to UK GDP/GVA.
The strongest defensible figures are:
- estimated 2.1m animals/year for kosher slaughter from industry/academic research;
- approximately 90,000 cattle
- approximately 90,000 sheep
- approximately 1.5m poultry supervised by the London Board of Shechita according to the Huddersfield factsheet;
- no official Government market-value estimate.
We can therefore say:
The kosher meat sector is economically significant but substantially smaller than halal and much less well quantified by official statistics.
I would not put a made-up £ figure on kosher without building a transparent estimate from animal numbers, carcass weights and prices.
21. There is another fascinating Government figure
The 2024 survey found:
97% of UK meat production was from stunned slaughter
and
3% from non-stun slaughter
during the survey period.
That means the overwhelming majority of British meat is still produced through stunning.
But this 3% non-stun figure should not be confused with halal's 20.7% animal share.
Why?
Because:
20.7% = animals destined for halal production
whereas:
3% = animals slaughtered without stunning.
Most halal is stunned.
22. What Government says about selling non-stun meat
This is politically important.
Government guidance says non-stun slaughter is an exemption from the normal requirement to stun and that the meat must be intended for Muslim or Jewish consumers.
But as of 2026:
There is no legal requirement to label meat as having come from a non-stunned animal.
The Government confirmed this in March 2026.
It says major retailers generally have sourcing policies requiring fresh meat to come from stunned animals, while limited halal/kosher concessions may be clearly labelled.
This is currently the subject of parliamentary debate.
23. What we can say with confidence
If we're building a factual report, I would rank the evidence like this:
Tier 1 — Government/official
Very strong
- UK meat production
- meat production value
- imports/exports
- slaughter numbers
- slaughter methods
- halal slaughter numbers
- non-stun slaughter
- Shechita percentages
- consumer meat purchases
- food-chain GVA.
Tier 2 — AHDB
Strong industry evidence
- halal consumer spending
- halal lamb share
- Muslim purchasing patterns
- halal export opportunities.
Tier 3 — University of Huddersfield/HMC research
Useful economic market research
- £1.7bn halal slaughter value
- 15% sector share
- £810m halal sheep/lamb
- £700m halal poultry
- market-chain analysis.
But it is commissioned research by the Halal Monitoring Committee, so it should not be presented as an independent Government statistic. The University itself identifies it as a commissioned report published by HMC.
Tier 4 — Kosher industry estimates
Useful but limited
- 2.1m animals
- London Board of Shechita supervision figures
- market value unclear.
24. The biggest finding so far
I think the most important conclusion is this:
The UK Government does not currently publish a complete "halal vs kosher vs conventional meat market" account.
Instead, the data are fragmented across:
Defra → FSA → HMRC → ONS → AHDB → industry certification bodies → academic research.
That means a proper analysis has to reconstruct the market.
And that is exactly what we can do.
25. The dataset I would build for you
For the next stage, I would build a UK Meat Market Master Table with these columns:
| Sector | Production tonnes | Production £ | Imports | Exports | Domestic supply | Consumer spend | Halal | Kosher | Conventional | Stunned | Non-stun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beef | |||||||||||
| Lamb/mutton | |||||||||||
| Pork | |||||||||||
| Chicken | |||||||||||
| Turkey | |||||||||||
| Other poultry | |||||||||||
| Goat | |||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||
| TOTAL |
Then separately:
HALAL ECONOMIC MODEL
Farm value → slaughter → processing → wholesale → retail → restaurants → exports → employment → GVA
and:
KOSHER ECONOMIC MODEL
Farm value → Shechita → kosher supervision → processing → wholesale → retail → restaurants → imports/exports → employment → GVA
And finally:
RELIGIOUS SLAUGHTER MODEL
Halal stunned
Halal non-stunned
Shechita
Conventional stunned
That would allow us to answer the really important question:
"What percentage of the UK meat economy is actually dependent on halal and kosher demand, and how much economic activity would be affected if those markets disappeared?"
That is a much stronger economic question than simply asking how many animals are halal.
One especially striking preliminary conclusion is that halal's importance is far greater in sheep than its 15% overall meat-sector share suggests: the Huddersfield research estimates around 74% of sheep-sector slaughter value, while AHDB estimates Muslims account for 30% of UK lamb sales by volume.
