Halal Food Festival in Manchester, Thousands Rush to Attend
Thousands of people flocked to attend Europe’s largest halal food festival held for the second year in Manchester, enjoying halal food from different countries around the world.
Held on Saturday at Bowler’s Exhibition Centre in Trafford, the event attracted around 15,000 visitors who came to celebrate halal food and lifestyle.
“It’s been a phenomenal response for us to come back,” Bilal Khan, the organizer and festival director of The Halal Food Festival told the Manchester Evening News.
“We launched last year and clearly there’s a lot more people interested in it now. There’s a lot more different cultures getting interested into it now.”
The indoor section of the Exhibition Centre focused on a variety of Halal lifestyle brands. The rest of the floor was populated by an ‘Artisan Market’, hosted by the ‘Muslim Instashop Expo’, and showcased fine delicacies, home décor, arts and crafts, fashion and beauty.
The main event was at the outdoor section of the venue where different sections offered halal Vietnamese food, Japanese fusion, Palestinian, Pakistani and Caribbean food.
Success
The huge number of visitors was encouraging to organizers, who are considering extending the festival to three days next year.
“It’s so exciting, we just need to figure out next year if we should do three days!” Khan added.
“Coming to Manchester has been so welcoming, it seems like the community is really together and they were ready to try new things. People wanna learn a little more about halal food and it’s amazing.
“It’s getting to the mainstream level and that’s where we want to take it, we want to invite people from all walks of life to come and experience it and remove the usual stereotypes that come with halal food and the Muslim community.
“We just want to socialize and show how we have fun, and that’s by eating food.”
The concept of halal, — meaning permissible in Arabic — has traditionally been applied to food.
Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.
The halal festival in Manchester is not the only one hosted around the world.
The London Halal Food Festival (LHFF) usually takes place in September every year, attracting thousands of foodies.
SOURCE: https://aboutislam.net/muslim-issues/europe/halal-food-festival-in-manchester-thousands-rush-to-attend/