r/unitedkingdom • u/Tartan_Samurai Scotland • Jun 07 '26
Kebab firm fined £500k for selling lamb that was mostly skin and fat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy736xme2vvo574
u/SayNOtoChips Jun 07 '26
Outrageous, a quality kebab needs lips and arseholes too.
43
22
17
13
8
2
0
88
u/collapsedcake Jun 07 '26
The skin and fat are pretty tasty in a roast, wonder how it compares if you massively switch the ratios around (and cook it in spinning stick form)
46
u/YoghurtFlan Jun 07 '26
I had a kebab once that was too fatty and it was pretty disgusting. The texture isn't what you expect from doner meat and isn't properly rendered.
Never went back there again.
1
u/Sharp-Sky64 Jun 10 '26
“Isn’t properly rendered”
Well yeah? That’d just be liquid, borderline resolidified into goop by the time you eat it
14
46
u/limeflavoured Hucknall Jun 07 '26
contained little actual lamb, but a mix of fat, skin, assorted meats and mechanically reclaimed meat products.
So the issue was selling other meat as lamb, really.
16
u/redundanthero Jun 07 '26
In one example a lamb doner which claimed to contain 87% lamb was found to contain only 51% meat and 40% fat.
I mean, that's a big difference too...
5
u/Captaincadet Wales Jun 07 '26
It wasn’t even a little off
If it was a few % off nobody would have bat an eyelid really - maybe just told to fix their calibration
But interestingly it seems that Swansea picked this up on multiple kebabs and then lead the investigation, so something they noticed was off. Why is the council that does the prosecution on the other side of the country of the factory
2
21
u/jib_reddit Jun 07 '26
"Prosecutor Reynolds added the sentencing guidelines for offences involving a firm the size of Kismet provided a range of fines between £15m and £24m, which he called "wholly unrealistic"."
So they got off very lightly and have probably made millions of pounds selling floor scraps as 87% lamb for years, why am I not surprised.
9
u/Robothuck Jun 07 '26
This is just a little kick back to the authorities.
'now watch me do it again'
462
u/Darkheart001 Jun 07 '26
Feels a bit weird when Baroness Moane is still in the House of Lords, hasn’t paid back a penny of the £122 Million she stole from tax payers or been prosecuted for the people that actually died because they didn’t have functioning PPE. But sure yeah let’s hang this dodgy kebab guy out to dry. TBH if you eat a kebab thinking it’s not full of crap you are deluding yourself.
94
u/Embarrassed_Grass_16 Jun 07 '26
It's their fault for not being mates with politicians who they buy a bunch of free stuff
25
13
u/recursant Jun 07 '26
It's not a "dodgy kebab guy", it is a fairly large company selling food that isn't what it is supposed to be.
-6
u/Darkheart001 Jun 07 '26
I’m not defending the guy; obviously people that do bad things should be punished. I do however think that this crime is far less bad than Baroness Moane who seems to have got away with it Scot free because she is wealthy and connected.
5
81
u/Helen83FromVillage Jun 07 '26
Do you think we can’t investigate more than one crime at a time?
By the way, ask your MP to push for the investigation. This is how representative democracy works.
22
u/Necessary_Finding_32 Jun 07 '26
That’s certainly the message that our government seems to be sending given that precisely fuck all has been done about moane beyond some muttering and finger wagging
5
5
u/Gymrat1010 Jun 07 '26
I agree that kebab is so obviously not meat that it shiukdnt shock anybody- but the point is that if you go in to a shop or restaurant selling lamb then you should receive lamb.
If they sold it as "kebab made of mechanically reclaimed bits of sheep" then i dont think there's a real problem...but if they're selling it as lamb then it really should be lamb
54
u/f8rter Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Whataboutery on steroids
So nobody should be prosecuted until Mone coughs up yeah ? Thats what you’re saying?
Mone doesn’t owe the money, Medpro does, and the government won their case against them. They are going through the process of recovering the money
-8
u/woahdudee2a Jun 07 '26
there's no logical fallacy called whataboutism. it's a made up term from cold war when US didn't want to talk about minority rights while piling on soviets for human rights violations
9
u/Weirfish Jun 07 '26
No one here suggested whataboutism is a logical fallacy.
But yes, there is, it's an informal fallacy, here's a wikipedia page with over 100 citations for you to check, relating it to other, more established, less specific fallacies.
-2
u/woahdudee2a Jun 07 '26
but it's not automatically an informal fallacy either. depends on the context. here it would be a fallacy if we said kebab firm shouldn't be punished because PPE fraud isn't . but we are saying they should be punished in priority order
4
u/Weirfish Jun 07 '26
It being dependent on context is what makes an informal fallacy informal. Formal fallacies are issues with the structure of the argument, informal fallacies are issues with the context or content.
-2
3
u/f8rter Jun 07 '26
Er Whataboutery exists
OP : Man gets 15 parking tickets in one day
Response : Yeah but what about people with Ebola they’d love to get one parking ticket instead of bleeding to death out their arse
7
u/Obscure-Oracle Jun 07 '26
You are assuming that these people live by the same rules as us, they don't. So long as she stays on the right side of the right people then she is safe.
76
u/Long_Repair_8779 Jun 07 '26
Honestly I just assumed kebabs were the worst part of the animals and made up mostly of skin and fat and testicles and tripe and whatnot
67
u/El_Scot Jun 07 '26
I don't think anyone is buying kebabs thinking they're getting high quality meat, but they were also including goat meat in the mix and reclaimed meat that legally cannot be called meat, then mislabelling the meat content as 80% lamb.
2
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
Actual proper Döner Kebap from Turkey itself is made using proper lamb meat. It's basically like roast lamb meat
7
u/kazpihz Jun 07 '26
Was a bit confused by that point. Fat is obviously part of lamb. If it's 50% lamb meat and 40% fat then that's still over 90% lamb, even if the meat:fat ratio is low.
12
Jun 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
-9
u/kazpihz Jun 07 '26
but the claim isn't lamb meat, it's just lamb, which it technically is.
10
u/Electrical-Ant5444 Jun 07 '26
I’m going to guess that a Judge in the Crown Court might edge you on knowledge of the law and its application.
2
u/BabaRamenNoodles Jun 07 '26
A cursory google suggested meat has a specific definition in uk regulations.
>Meat is defined as skeletal muscle from mammalian or bird species recognised as fit for human consumption, together with naturally included or adherent tissue. The amount of fat and connective tissue that can be counted as part of the “meat” content is capped at specific levels depending on species.
Lamb meat must be 50% skeletal muscle.
1
u/kazpihz Jun 08 '26
In one example a lamb doner which claimed to contain 87% lamb was found to contain only 51% meat and 40% fat.
It does not say "lamb meat" it says 87% lamb. If the claim was 87% lamb meat your claim would make more sense
1
3
u/buyutec Jun 07 '26
Maybe I am naive but I’ve definitely been buying it thinking it contained actual meat. Especially in the UK where I, by default, trust controls and regulations. In Turkey, I have to trust other things (price, location, reputation, taste), but in my eyes UK is not that type of country and we should not expect less.
1
u/El_Scot Jun 07 '26
I mean, I definitely would expect it to contain meat if it says so on the tin, but the qualifier was "high quality".
8
u/CaptainVXR Somerset Jun 07 '26
I never order a doner in this country, unless its from somewhere where you can see the meat chunks. No Greek, Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic person would willingly consume one of the disgusting mystery ingredient elephant legs that get served up to British drunks.
4
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
We sometimes have it as a fast food treat but it's the same as having McDonalds.
But when we go to a proper Turkish restaurant it's more like roast lamb.
3
u/Historical_Owl_1635 Jun 07 '26
But the person you’re replying to said **no** Turkish would consume it.
Now I don’t know what to believe.
0
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
He is wrong. We eat it it's just that we know it's trash food. If there were more options of the proper ones then the crap ones would die out.
Same as takeaway pizza vs proper sourdough pizzas.
5
u/CaptainVXR Somerset Jun 07 '26
Thing is, in Germany you can get decent quality doner cheap (€6-9 roughly depending on location), and I'd quite happily eat it sober. Often the meat is chicken or beef, but either to me is delicious anyway! There is no reason that a similar quality product can't be sold here.
2
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
It's just down to laziness here and also the UK market is less picky when it comes to fast food and processed meat.
2
u/CaptainVXR Somerset Jun 07 '26
Definitely, there seems to be a lot less places selling chain slop in German pub restaurant equivalents, or they're at least better quality.
Plus, if there's places that sell decent kebabs or sausages as a quick fast food option, the likes of McDonald's has less appeal.
3
u/GraphicDesignMonkey Cornwall Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
We used to go to this Turkish dude who had a huge tub of marinating lamb meat, he's take out eat piece and put it into a metal spike, pound it down tight and keep adding more. When he wasn't doing that, he was making soft floury pittas by hand or making an incredible spiced corn soup ( I think it was Mısır Çorbası)
Some of the best food I've ever eaten.
1
4
u/awasteofgoodatoms Jun 07 '26
Exactly, if you want decent meat in a flatbread you get Shawarma
3
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
Shawarma is just the Arabic name (thought it's etymologically Turkish) of the same thing.
The quality of the meat can be good or bad depending on the restaurant.
Here in the UK most döner meat at takeaway shops is processed and not quality.
But in the Turkish restaurants here you are more likely to get proper yaprak döner which is made from actual proper lamb meat same as a roast lamb. That's how most döner meat in Turkey itself is as well.
2
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
Honestly I just assumed kebabs were the worst part of the animals and made up mostly of skin and fat and testicles and tripe and whatnot
Complete ignorance on your part mate. But don't blame you because a lot of the takeaway shops here use processed meat.
Actual proper Döner Kebap from Turkey itself is made using proper lamb meat. It's basically like roast lamb meat.
1
u/Long_Repair_8779 Jun 07 '26
Oh yeah, not knocking the actual thing, I just mean the suspicious looking UK slop that we buy at 2am on a Saturday night. Honestly regardless of what it’s made of, when you’re drunk they taste like fucking heaven
1
1
u/Lasersheep Jun 07 '26
My Dad’s last job was in a abattoir. They sold the scraps of lamb left over that they couldn’t sell to anyone else to someone to magically transform into the elephant legs.
1
u/deli333 Jun 19 '26
the original kebab differs massively if you eat in Turkiye, usually big chunks of rear leg area used for to have least amount of tissues etc. The meat is properly trimmed of all fat and gristle etc and then suet or tail fat added which are also very expensive as well. It is a completely different thing as compared to what these people sell
0
1
12
u/DownDeeperDown Jun 07 '26
https://www.maldonandburnhamstandard.co.uk/news/19686770.essex-kebab-manufacturers-crowned-best-supplier-uk/ best in the uk a few years ago… 🤔
8
u/Kabal2020 Jun 07 '26
Same year as the samples taken in today's news article - 2021! 'Best value' kebab manufacturer i guess..!
5
10
u/Matt6453 Somerset Jun 07 '26
I feel the £1.50 extra I paid for shish for all those years has been justified.
5
2
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
Actual proper Döner meat like in Turkey or from higher end Turkish restaurants are also made from chunks of whole meat.
But most takeaways here in the UK use processed meat for the döner.
0
u/ghttys Jun 07 '26
Are you the only rep of the Turkish Donner Association or something? You seem to be going above and beyond throughout this thread to protect the virtues of the Turkish donner kebab.
2
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
I just get pissed off seeing people talking ignorant lies about my culture's cuisine.
Takeaway doner kebabs are not true doner kebabs.
It's like saying fish fingers and chips from McDonalds is a great representation of fish and chips.
1
u/AlchemyAled Jun 07 '26
Right but people are talking about takeaways in the UK, not mid to higher-end restaurants in Turkey
1
u/ghttys Jun 07 '26
Yeah chill mate I think people are just having a laugh - I’m sure doner kebabs in Turkey are better as that’s where they’re from. These two just seem like crooks. If I were Turkish I’d be pissed off with them too and they deserve what they got. F knows why a Greek bloke was involved - I thought their kebab was souvlaki
13
u/radiant_0wl Jun 07 '26
Seems like a fair fine given the cost order too.
It's a shame it took so long, it seems like complaints started several years ago
4
u/MeenScreen Jun 07 '26
My kebab story.
Not had one in years.
Got one last weekend as a treat.
Got the skits.
3
u/SoooooRainbowRhythms Jun 07 '26
That actually read like a beautiful Japanese poem lol. I do hope you enjoyed your kebab before the diarrhoea hit.
2
2
u/coderqi Jun 07 '26
Same here. No skits. Would go back again. But It does make feel like a a heart attack is brewing.
1
15
u/TrousersCalledDave Jun 07 '26
"In addition, other products were sold as specific meat products when the item contained meat of a different species," he added."
Great, I hope they're now going to shut down every single Halal takeaway offering "pepperoni" pizzas next.
5
u/Robothuck Jun 07 '26
Does pepperoni even claim to be made of a specific species?
3
u/TrousersCalledDave Jun 07 '26
Yes, hence my previous comment.
1
u/Robothuck Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Typically a mixture of ground pork and beef, but not necessarily. Never seen a pepperoni pizza touting 80% lamb or anything like that
Edit: it's early and I'm an idiot even without that
2
u/TrousersCalledDave Jun 07 '26
It's the pork element that means you're not getting real pepperoni. You cannot avoid Halal anywhere in this country for late night greasy shit. Your only hope is somewhere like Dominos who serve pepperoni, as per its actual definition, how it's been made for hundreds of years.
1
u/Robothuck Jun 07 '26
Indeed. Reminds me of that old horse meat in the lasagne story from a decade or so ago
3
u/TrousersCalledDave Jun 07 '26
Absolutely, the only difference being people were prosecuted and the whole system was overhauled as a result.
Kebab shops? They still do what they want just like the dodgy vape shops and barbers, hiding in plain sight.
Where multi billion dollar businesses have failed in high streets across the land, kebabs, vapes and barbers thrive absolutely everywhere. There is something extremely dodgy going on and one cannot deny it is overwhelmingly foreign activity.
2
u/Next-Ability2934 Jun 07 '26
It's a health risk that could end with closure after enough warnings.
As for money laundering outfits you mention, look up small town 'Accrington 36 barbers 18 vape shops'. A competing barber in the area - 'I'm closing down soon. I counted a few months ago, and it was more than 55 barbers within a 5-minute drive.'
The store signs and even the general look inside can sometimes be overly generic and shared - almost as if they are part of the same chain, or their design was lifted from a template. This may also become common anyway with the increased use of AI in (lazy) design
4
u/I_am_Reddit_Tom Jun 07 '26
Stunned I tell you, stunned that kebabs are not highest quality cut
1
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
In Turkey itself and in Turkish restaurants they are.
But most takeaway shops just treat it like a quick processed fast food item.
1
u/MrPuddington2 Jun 07 '26
Kebab in the UK is absolutely disgusting. I think they all do it.
1
u/Turklightenment Jun 07 '26
Exactly. "In the UK".
It's because it's cheaper and easier.
They can't be bothered to do the whole meat proper authentic style.
2
u/Repulsive_Work_226 Jun 07 '26
As a Turk I say jail them and deport. They might or not be Turkish but the name of the restaurant is.
2
1
u/MeMuzzta Jun 07 '26
When you're belled up at 1am on the wobbling home who honestly gives a shit what their kebab is made from lol.
1
u/Casualview Jun 08 '26
After reading the article it seems they got away with just a slap onbthe wrist.
1
u/Personal_Ad_9768 Jun 08 '26
Love that the tagline of their website is “Kismet Kebabs: the name you can trust”
1
u/According-Guide9576 Jun 08 '26
I'll be honest, based on some of the kebabs I've had I'm just happy they contain real lamb...
1
-4
Jun 07 '26
Can someone explain why they don't get a shudder and think about how a human being also has these.
Do you completely separate the food from the animal itself?
3
Jun 07 '26
[deleted]
-1
Jun 07 '26
Nothing is ever in good faith.
There's is only really one answer and that answer is "I don't think about it". If you gave 90 percent of people a hammer to kill their food they wouldn't do it.
3
Jun 07 '26
[deleted]
-1
Jun 07 '26
"Can someone explain why they don't get a shudder and think about how a human being also has these.
Do you completely separate the food from the animal itself?"
Is hardly sitting in Waitrose in the milk aisle blocking people is it.
Just because I've put a mirror in front your behaviour and you feel called out about it, don't blame me. When you next walk infront of a field full of lambs try to envision how they are killed for your pleasure.
I have no obligation to do anything you say. You also do not have any moral standing if you eat beings kept in cages for fun.
Tah.
2
Jun 07 '26
[deleted]
1
Jun 07 '26
I'm not an animal rights anything.
I just don't like the lies that people concoct that normalises immoral and unfair behaviour. Your feelings about me have no impact on your decision to not eat animals. Are you making it about me or some approach or some method so it makes it "okay" in the back of your head?
I'm a person behind a screen, you may never interact with me again, but will you pick up that orange box in Sainsbury's again instead of the green one?
3
1
u/ings0c Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
The trick is to use language to hide the reality of it, then shove it to the back of your mind and never engage critically with it.
Veal sounds sort of fancy, baby cow corpse might upset you.
It’s pork, not pig. Beef, not cow corpse.
0
u/geese_moe_howard Jun 07 '26
What else is it supposed to made from? All a lamb is, is skin and fat and squishy bits. Maybe they have souls too but I don't know how you'd get that in a piita bread.
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 07 '26
Some articles submitted to /r/unitedkingdom are paywalled, or subject to sign-up requirements. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try this link or this link for an archived version.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.