‘Disgusting’ video shows how doner kebabs are made after millions eat goat and skin without knowing
Stopping for a kebab at the takeaway is arguably a core feature for a night out in the UK. A big dirty doner of shavings of meat slathered in sauces and stuffed into the soft bread with a touch of salad can be enough to convince us we’ll be fine in the morning.
And while it’s fair to say that by that point we may not necessarily be thinking about what we’re putting into our body, you’d at least hope the food is what it says it is.
However, a recent investigation found that millions of Brits have unknowingly eaten the likes of goat and skin when they’ve ordered a lamb doner.
This comes as trading standards visited the Kismet Kebab factory back in 2021 with the firm now being fined for ‘straightforward food fraud’ as officers compare it to the horsemeat scandal.
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But this does turn our minds to considering just how that 3am doner kebab is actually made in the first place.
‘Fat, skin and goat’
BBC News has reported that DNA testing at what’s said to be one of the UK’s largest doner kebab makers found that kebabs supposed to be ‘70 percent lamb’ were ‘less than 10 percent sheep’.
Kismet Kebabs was fined £500,000 after admitting to a fraud that dates back to 2021 as the firm are said to have made £6 million from it.
The firm said it related to ‘historical events’ over five years ago when they ‘operated under a different leadership structure’.
"I think some customers won't be surprised there's a lot of skin and fat in these products - but I don't think many people will be expecting goat," said Swansea trading standards officer Rhys Harries.
He pointed out that someone buying a kebab will know that it’s likely not exactly the ‘best quality ingredients’ but it still needs to be ‘what it says it is’.
"It's almost the same as the horsemeat scandal, because of the volume of product that was going out of this factory,” Harries added.
When officers raided the factory, he said quickly became clear that no lamb was being delivered.
"There were pallets of goat, pallets of trim, offcuts with high fat content, boxes of fat, boxes of skin, bits of mutton. It all goes into a massive mincer and comes out looking like Play-Doh."
He explained that labels were added that ‘bore no resemblance’ to what was actually going into the kebabs.
Invoices showed the company was buying very little lamb but a ‘large volume of skin, fat, goat’.
"This is straightforward food fraud,” he continued. They were charging wholesalers and consumers a premium price for something that's full of rubbish."
How is doner meat made?
Some time ago, Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped shared a YouTube video that took a deep dive into the world of the doner kebab.
Presenter Jimmy Doherty headed to Veli’s Kebabs factory in Staffordshire to find out just what goes into it.
Looking at the meat, a factory worker tells him: “This has come off one of the big supermarkets. They trim the meat up, they get it aesthetically pleasing for the customer, and the trim that gets leftover we get coming in.
“If [the meat] is labelled up as doner, which everybody associates with what's on a spit, it should be 100 percent lamb. There are companies out there that are labelling up kebabs and they're containing beef and chicken - and there have been some instances of pork, which, for the Muslim community, is a big no-no.”
To assemble the kebab, big chunks of lamb are diced in a machine before going into another where more ingredients are added.
Textured soya protein is used to keep prices low by bulking out the mix and then onion powder and salt is added. Thanks to the salt, the kebab can then be cut into those satisfying strips without falling apart.
Once all the mixing has been done, the ‘doner’ is 85 percent lamb, five percent bulking agent, 5 percent rusk and 5 percent seasoning.
Then it's moulded into thick circles to be stacked up onto a 'spit'. Oh, and there's a sheet of lamb skin in between each one.
Some viewers said the video was 'disgusting' and that they'll 'never eat again'.
But come on, as one viewer pointed out: "If you’re still capable of questioning what’s in it [a doner], you’re not p**sed enough to savour it.”
Topics: UK News, Food And Drink
Jess Battison