Is Nando's Halal? The Answer Changed in 2025

Nando's says it is not a halal brand. It quietly removed its per-store halal wording in 2025. Here's what the company says now, and what it means in Melbourne.

If you've been told your local Nando's is halal certified, that information may be out of date. The company's own position has changed, and most of the pages repeating the old version haven't caught up.

The short version: Nando's says plainly that it is not a halal brand and does not pay for certification. Some suppliers hold halal certification and the bastings are halal, but the brand itself makes no halal claim.

What Nando's actually says

From the Nando's Australia help centre, reviewed by the company on 29 July 2026, three days before we checked:

"Nando's is not a Halal brand and does not pay fees for certification. However, our bastings are Halal and some of our chicken suppliers carry Halal certification."

They also name the exceptions: the Queensland chicken supplier isn't halal certified, and neither is the ribs supplier in WA, SA, ACT, NSW and QLD.

The change most people missed

Until early 2025, that same page said something else. It read:

"Some of our franchised restaurants may choose to obtain individual Halal certifications and we encourage you to check with your local restaurant directly."

That sentence, and the store locator link that went with it, were removed around March 2025. The locator no longer flags any halal store in Australia.

This matters because a lot of "halal Nando's" lists still circulating online are built on that older wording. If you see a specific Melbourne store described as halal certified, it may be repeating a page that no longer exists.

The grill situation

This is the part worth knowing before you order, and to their credit Nando's spells it out.

Their kitchens run two cooking surfaces: the open flame-grill at the front, and a flat top grill at the back. Bacon is cooked on the flat top grill. So are the chicken breasts and tenders used in burgers, wraps, pitas, paella and salads.

Same surface. Same shift.

There is one useful workaround, straight from Nando's: you can ask the team to cook your chicken on the open flame-grill instead. If you're eating there, that's the request to make.

What about Victoria?

Nando's doesn't list Victoria among its non-certified suppliers, which implies the VIC chicken and ribs suppliers are certified. But that's us reading between the lines. The company makes no positive statement about Victoria, and an implication isn't a certification.

We looked specifically for evidence that any Melbourne Nando's holds its own certificate. We couldn't find one on the company's site, in its help centre, or in a certifier register. If a store tells you it's certified, ask to see the certificate.

Good to know: certification in Australia is often per-supplier or per-store, not per-brand. A chain being "halal" in one state can mean nothing about another.

Check it yourself

Nando's publishes its position at help.nandos.com.au. Search "halal" there. It's updated reasonably often, which is more than can be said for most of the pages ranking above it.

Want somewhere that's been through our checks instead? Browse the directory for halal chicken across Melbourne.

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Been to one of these lately? Tag us on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok @HalalFoodMelbourne and tell us what you ordered.