News From : DagangHalal.com (18 Jan 2010)
The Belgian fast-food chain Quick is experimenting with halal restaurants in France. The branches will only serve products which comply with the Islamic food requirements. Since mid-December, eight Quicks in France changed over completely to halal food: Toulouse, Marseille (2), Roubaix, Villeurbanne, Argenteuil, Garges-les-Gonesse and Buchelay.
A notice at the door informs the visitors of the Islam-law abiding character of the place. The meat is approved by experts linked to the local mosque and the Great Mosque in Paris.
The news about the French Quick branches was reason enough for the Belgian Vlaams Belang Party to sound the doomsday alarm, since “if it rains in Paris, it drips in Brussels”. In response to the reaction by the Vlaams Belang Party objecting to this ‘Islamization’, and not wanting it in Belgium, operational manager Dorian Verfaille of Quick, said “We’re certainly are not going to open any halal restaurants in Belgium in this fashion,”. He said, “The situation in France with its suburbs is socially and economically completely different than in Belgium. What eventually might happen, dependent on the success in France, is that we might add one or two halal dishes to the menu in some existing restaurants. Just as we now already offer vegetarian burgers. But certainly not in the short term.”
Verfaille admits that halal branches can expect a lot of approval. “The first, in Toulouse, seem to run very well. We nevertheless had no publicity for it, everything happened via word-of-mouth advertising.”