Italy’s first-ever ‘halal’ supplier has opened for business in Italy’s northern city of Bologna, selling meals prepared according to Islamic principles to restaurants and canteens in Italy and abroad.
“Integration is also being able to eat as one should and to be at peace with God,” Hamza Piccardo, told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Piccardo, an Italian convert to Islam, is the director of the ‘Tre Alfieri Halal’, which is based in Bologna, a renowned gastronomic centre. “Our new company wants to be a triumph of integration: to combine Italy’s great cuisine and Islam’s rules without losing the flavours of the former and the spiritual rigour of the latter,” he said.
Piccardo believes the company’s ‘halal’ meals, which already include a range of pasta dishes and risottos, will appeal to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Besides restaurants and canteens ‘Tre Alfieri Halal’ will also supply caterers .
“This is a genuine alternative to fast food, which compromises quality and flavour, and to elitist and costly ‘slow food’, which is hard to reconcile with the pace of modern living,” Piccardo said.
