Former breakfast TV host Selina Scott has called for a boycott of trendy collagen products linked to the slaughter of animals.

Animal welfare campaigner Ms Scott, 74, said she was ‘repulsed’ after being persuaded to buy collagen powder as a pick-me-up, only to find it was Halal-certified.

That meant it was from a cow religiously slaughtered by having its throat cut while alive.

Production of collagen, an animal protein to improve skin, joints and bones, is now a £10billion industry.

Many products are made from bovine collagen, deriving from cows’ bones and skin, and processed into supplements.

Hailed as a miracle anti-ageing product, it can boost the body’s own collagen supply which depletes with age.

Ms Scott, who is campaigning to ban all religious slaughter of animals in Britain, said: ‘I went into Holland & Barrett and was told all about this miracle product collagen. 

‘But when I got it home and read the label I felt complete physical revulsion – to think I would be imbibing a product that had come from the pain and suffering of an animal for my skin, for beauty or whatever.’

She said it was ‘abhorrent’ beauty products are linked to the suffering of animals who die in excruciating pain. ‘Please read the label. I urge anyone not to buy them,’ she said. 

Up to 100 million animals a year are killed while conscious in line with a religious exemption to UK law for some Halal methods used by Muslims and all Shechita – Jewish – methods.

Campaigners claim that even many animals that are pre-stunned under some Halal methods – which Halal certification authorities say maximises animal welfare – only receive a light blow, meaning they often wake up, suffering terrible pain.