The company’s main manufacturing operations are at its large scale chicken farm based at Thumrait in the Dhofar region and the company always supports the annual Khareef Festival in a number of ways.

This year the company has decided to establish its own “A’Saffa Restaurant” on the site of the festival ground providing tasty, healthy and 100 per cent pure Halal snacks at great value prices.

All of the chicken burgers, chicken franks and nuggets come from chickens bred at the company’s local farm and are fed natural feed and bred in the best quality international conditions to ensure their health and guarantee a fresh, tasty and quality product to the consumer.

A’Saffa Foods Sales & Marketing Head, Sidhartha Lenka says: “We are delighted to have set up our special Khareef restaurant facility this year to enable us to reward our loyal customers and the thousands of visitors to the Festival with great value snacks at just 100 baizas.

“As a company with its main operations in the region we are always keen to support the Khareef Festival which is so important to the region. All of our customers can buy with confidence at our restaurant knowing that our chicken and beef products are 100 per cent Halal and offer a great tasting meal for individuals and families.”

Mr. Daeij Alhosni, Assistant Manager Marketing organizing the event has ensured that our consumers are offered the most hygienic food in the healthiest and tastiest form at the festival ground.

The fantastic value offer has already led to hundreds of people lining up to buy their great value sandwiches from the A’Saffa restaurant with the facility rapidly becoming one of the most popular eating destinations at the Festival.

This will be the first time that the company has promoted its new range of beef burgers that are produced by A’Saffa Foods subsidiary Al Khayrat that was established by the company last year to produce both beef and frozen vegetable products.

In addition to the restaurant, A’Saffa chicken is always highly sought after during the Festival and many of the traditional chicken barbeque stands that cook their chickens on hot stones always use A’Saffa chicken to give their customers the freshest, healthiest and tastiest meal.

A’Saffa Foods is Oman’s leading poultry producer with its great tasting and high quality range of frozen and fresh 100 per cent Halal products comprising over 25 per cent of the market. The company has also recently broadened its scope into non poultry products with the introduction of “Khayrat” brand and a range of tasty Halal beef burger products.

The company has recently announced plans to expand its operations into new areas of operations including the development of a new meat processing plant and the creation of a table egg business.

In 2010 the company marked its change of name from A’Saffa Poultry to A’Saffa Foods with the introduction of the Khayrat brand which has launched a new range of beef burgers and frozen vegetables.

Related posts:

1. Oman: A’Saffa Foods hosts visit by Arab Investment and Development Agricultural Authority
2. Oman: A’saffa Foods enters 2011 with new identity and new brands
3. Oman: A’Saffa Foods leading private sector effort to create food security in Oman
4. Oman: A’Saffa Foods sponsors health education walk
5. Oman: A’saffa Foods ensures consumers buy with trust and confidence

Source: The Halal Journal

By Abdalhamid Evans

A series of recent events relating to the Halal market in Europe all point to the fact that the Halal sector is really starting to come of age. Along with the opportunities that accompany any coming of age, there are also the inevitable responsibilities to be shouldered and dilemmas to be resolved.

The European picture is complex. There are distinct nation states with their own national issues, their own Muslim communities, their own market interests and their own geo-political dynamics.

There are also the wider European issues that will affect all members, as well as the even wider Islamic issues that all Muslims share, along with the often confusing – and even frustrating – differences between the various cultural and doctrinal groupings.

And of course, there are financial concerns and opportunities that have caught the attention of the European business communities. With over fifty million Muslims in the greater European region (and rising), and an average annual per capita food consumption in the region of 1,500 Euros (and rising), it is not surprising that business interests both large and small want to take a bite of this 75 billion Euro market.

The big question is…how? Because as attractive as this market appears, it is also something of a mine-field.

At the risk of over-simplifying the issue, we can say that there are three major components at work here:

• there is the food industry trying to balance quality and price to take advantage of a clear market opportunity;
• there are political forces, both for and against the growing Halal market, as well as the animal welfare lobby;
• there are the Muslim communities, on the one hand the targeted consumers and on the other hand attempting to be the regulators and guardians of the religious aspects of the Halal production process.

The dynamic at play here is that the predominantly pro-active forces are the first two – business and politics – while the Muslims remain thus far a reactive force that is, if you will excuse the expression, rather like the meat in the sandwich, whose moves are all too often defined by their reaction to the other more active participants.

Lets take a couple of examples.

The Politics

On 16 June 2010, the European Parliament introduced a resolution that, if it is passed into law, will require meat from non-stunned animals to be labelled accordingly, ie “Meat from slaughter without stunning”. While one may argue that this is simply a move to keep consumers informed, it is drawing a dividing line along ethical grounds with the clear, even if unstated, implication that meat from this method of slaughter is less ethical, thereby creating a second class of less humane meat products.

This would affect all products from whole carcasses to any downstream derivatives for all products being sold within the European Union. It is a move to marginalise and degrade both Halal and Kosher products. If it were really a sincere effort to inform consumers, then it would be fairer to make all meat products state clearly how the animal was slaughtered. The stun versus non-stun argument is not so clear cut, and surely all consumers have the right to know what they are eating

The most scholarly and informed research into this subject was conducted by Dr Temple Grandin of Colorado State University and Professor Joe Regenstein of Cornell University, and was reported in Meat Focus International in March 1994.

From this report it becomes clear that the key concerns from an animal welfare perspective are less to do with stunning, and more to do with the type of stress inflicted upon the animal before and during the slaughter process.

It is impossible to make a clear assessment of how the animals react to either the stun or the incision if it is already in a state of stress and agitation from the way it has been handled and restrained. Stress causes the release of chemicals into the blood stream that are best not consumed by humans, such as cortisol and adrenalin.

Dr Grandin has impeccable credentials when it comes to designing stress-free methods of handling and restraining cattle, and the observations that were made, once the animals were in a relatively stress-free state at the moment of slaughter, may be surprising to many.

When held upright in a comfortable restraining box, in tests with 3,000 cattle in three different plants, it was observed that “the animals had little or no reaction to the throat cut. There was a slight flinch when the blade first touched the throat. This flinch was less vigorous than an animal’s reaction to an eartag punch.”[i]

When a long razor-sharp knife is used, “95% of the calves collapse almost immediately…when a slower, less decisive stroke was used, there was an increased incidence of prolonged sensibility.”[ii]

Dr Grandin comments that there are some very poorly designed restraining devices in use in Europe. When poorly designed restraining devices are used, or where there is insensitive handling (even with good restraining devices) the animals react violently to excessive pressure. Hissing, metallic clanging noises and sudden movements are also disturbing to cattle and are unnecessary.

Badly designed restraining boxes result in poor results for stunning, with up to 3 out of 5 animals requiring a second shot, causing significant stress. All stunning methods appeared to cause the release of significant amounts of epinephrine[iii], greater than would be caused by environmental stresses or restraining method.

“One can definitely conclude that improperly applied stunning methods would be much more stressful than Kosher slaughter with a long straight razor sharp knife.”[iv]

Dr Grandin has also observed that the Kosher slaughtermen are more highly trained than the Muslim counterpart, and where she recommends stunning if the slaughter techniques are not optimal. This is clearly an issue that the proponents of non-stunned slaughter have to take into consideration, and to heed the prophetic advice, ‘When you kill, kill well.” It is no use simply claiming that Halal is the best method, and then performing it in anything other than the best way.

As Dr Grandin has pointed out with respect to this subject, “politics have interfered with good science”[v], and one can go further to say that not enough good science has been done.

But it is surely clear from this that for the pro-stunning lobbly to take the moral high-ground is indicative of either a lack of good information or the presence of a hidden agenda, neither of which is in the best interests of animals or people.

The real animal welfare issues are NOT about religious slaughter – that is really a red herring – they are issues about animal handling and being knowledgeable about, and being prepared to implement, the best practices in the animal slaughtering process.

The Industry

We must remember that the majority of the Halal products are produced in non-Muslim countries and companies. This is an observation rather than a complaint, but it needs to be kept in mind when looking at the way Halal has made its way into the mainstream.

The recent disclosure that there is far more Halal meat being consumed in the UK than has been recognised is indicative of several things.

Firstly, for food producers, and particularly for the food service industry, going fully Halal represents an attractive proposition. It makes good business sense. Faced with the options of a) running two separate production lines, or b) missing out on the Halal sector altogether, many producers have opted to go fully Halal. New Zealand and Australian producers were probably the first to make this choice, and the Halal option worked well for them, although recent events in the UK may well force them to label their export products more clearly.

In the UK, institutions as diverse as hospitals, sporting ground and even pubs have also opted to go fully Halal, for example with their chicken products, but without labelling their offering accordingly, and perhaps without fully appreciating the public response to this lack of disclosure.

Despite some emotive and manipulative reporting on this subject, there is a strong case for letting the consuming public know what they are eating. And this has two sides to it. Not only do the non-Muslim population want to know if the meat is Halal…so that some of them can avoid it, the Halal consumers would like to know so that they can eat it. How many residents as well as travellers to the UK would appreciate knowing that they can eat the meat after all!

It has been interesting to note that in the aftermath of the disclosure about undercover Halal food in the UK, the majority of the outburst was against the Muslims and the methods of slaughter…almost all of them totally ignorant about Halal slaughter methods. There were surprisingly few comments aimed at the business owners who had made these purely commercial decisions to supply Halal, and had made the conscious decision not to tell their customers – Muslim or non-Muslim.

So we can draw two conclusions. Firstly, the decision to buy from a Halal supplier is often made simply on the basis of the price/quality equation. Ideology and faith do not come into it. As the Whitbread spokesman said, “We don’t specify Halal as a requirement in our procurement. We base our ­decision on quality and price. It just turns out that we source that amount of chicken from suppliers that happen to be Halal.”[vi]

Secondly, it is understandable that the general public is not knowledgeable about the details of Halal or Kosher slaughter. It is also understandable that newspapers want stories that will sell papers. But the extent of the mis-information that passes for reporting is doing little more than fanning the flames of controversy and reveals a distasteful agenda that is primarily an attack on the Muslims.

But the Muslims did not ask for Halal meals at Wembley Stadium. They did not even know!

The Muslim Response

The greatest challenge facing the Muslims, on this and many other issues, is to move from a reactive to a pro-active mode of being. This is true for the Muslim nation states, but it is certainly a more pressing need for the Muslim communities in the West.

There are really two significant issues here, and it is important that the Muslim communities in Europe understand them.

Firstly, we have to defend both stunned and non-stunned Halal slaughter because we need them both. Halal is an industry, whether we like it or not, and the procedures of stunning are not going to go away, because the meat industry and the legislators are not going to allow that to happen. Pre-stunned Halal slaughter is here to stay.

The issue of proving whether an animal is alive at the time of slaughter can be solved by a variety of means, and if the animal is demonstrably alive, the accusations that the process is haram are simply not justifiable. Halal is by definition ‘permissible’ which therefore signifies a lowest common denominator rather than a highest common factor.

In the face of those forces that would like to get rid of any form of Halal products, it is important to recognise that Halal, in all its varieties, needs to be supported with a unified front.

There are moves to introduce stun-to-kill (as being more ‘efficient’ than stun-to-stun) and the euphemistically named Controlled Atmosphere Killing, (ie death by gas) will be with us by 2013. We should pay more attention to the real issues that confront us, rather than squabble over issues which are, when we see the larger picture, actually details.

The Muslims need to defend the right to slaughter without stunning. They also need to insist that stunning methods ensure that the animal is alive at the moment of slaughter. The important point, surely, is that both these procedures be done in the most humane, safe and sanitary conditions possible.

Secondly, the Muslim communities have to build institutions that can define and regulate the industry in the best possible way. It does not matter who is right. It matters that it is done right.

There is a pressing need, and a great opportunity, to create a national institution that will a) create clear definitions and standards for the Halal market, b) regulate the activities of the Halal certification bodies, c) ensure that the industry is clear about how to comply with Halal guidelines, and d) ensure that the consumers understand what they are buying.

An accreditation body such as this would be of great benefit to the industry, to the consumers, and, importantly, to the economy. Not only are there important business opportunities within the domestic Halal markets, there are huge opportunities to supply the import-dependent Muslim world.

Differences have to be set aside with the understanding that the formation of national Halal accreditation bodies will be in the interests of the greater good of society.

Any European country that takes on the Halal agenda in a balanced and well-planned way, will find it can create new business opportunities that will help to revive a struggling economy. If Halal is done correctly, if it is taken to its highest possibility, it can have a beneficial effect on peoples health, on animal welfare and for the economy.

[ii] ibid

[iii] Van der Waal 1978; Warrington 1974

[iv] Grandin and Regenstein, Meat Focus International 1994, p 115-123.

[v] ibid

[vi] http://halalfocus.net/2010/09/19/uk-britain-goes-halal-but-no-one-tells-the-public/

Abdalhamid Evans is the Founder of the HalalFocus website. He is also the Project Director of the World Halal Forum Europe being held in London on the 10-11 November 2010. He can be contacted at: hamid@halalfocus.com.

Related posts:

1. World Halal Forum Europe approves EU’s rejection of Amendment 205
2. EU: Düsseldorf Halal Conference Resolves to Protect Halal in Europe

With everyone from supermarket giants and fast-food chains through to small and medium-sized players jostling to get their share of the Halal market pie, what strategies can give exporters a leading edge?

Know the Market

There is no substitute for research. Breaking into a new market is somewhat akin to throwing a ball through the window of a moving car; you have to be able to judge the speed and direction of the car in order to hit the target. Markets are not stationary objects, they are in a continual state of change and fluctuation, and research clearly shows that the companies that have the greatest success with new products and markets are those that make a concerted effort to gain in-depth knowledge of relevant market trends. If you have not understood the market, you will not be able to get your product through that moving window of opportunity.

For example, let us take a look at the greater European Halal market where 50 million Muslims command a collective annual spending power of an nearly 70 billion Euros. The Halal sector is a subsector of the overall food and beverage market, so the underlying food retailing trends will have an impact on how the Halal food sector develops.

In both the EU and the UK, food retailing has changed significantly in the past 25 years. In France, the neighbourhood convenience stores have seen their market share drop from over 30 percent in 1980 to under 5 percent in 2004, while the giant hypermarkets have moved from 30 percent to over 50 percent in the same period. And while the regular supermarkets share has remained at around 31 percent during this time, the new ‘hard discount’ stores have seen an 80 percent growth in the last decade to take a 10 percent share in 2004, posing a serious threat to everyone. Clearly, any moves made by the major retail giants LeClerc, Carrefour and Auchan, who between them control 75 percent of the market, will have far-reaching repercussions.

Threatened by the rapid growth rates of the discount retailers like Lidl, Leader Price and Aldi, the market leaders are looking for ways to keep their noses in front. With their growth rates slipping from 2.8 percent in 2000 to just .8 percent in 2005, they are by necessity on the lookout for new markets. Against this background trend of market share moving from the convenience store to the supermarket, and then on to the discount store, we can turn to look at the trends in the Halal sub-sector.

The Halal Opportunity

Currently, the small Muslim-owned Halal food stores still command around 90 percent of the Halal market. In addition to Halal meat, these neighbourhood shops also sell a variety of related products that fall loosely into the ‘ethnic food’ category, such as dates, olives, speciality breads, spices and condiments etc, as well as other standard convenience foods.

The retail giants, having had success in recent years with the ethnic food sector, have recognised that Halal overlaps and encompasses the ethnic sector in many respects, and represents a new homogenous market sector with increasing spending power. The Muslim consumer who shops at the local Halal shop is still included in the 98 percent of the overall population who shop in the super and hyper markets, and therefore represents a significant opportunity for the giants to (a) take customers from the Halal shops and (b) offset losses to the discount stores.

The supermarket giants (like most of the rest of the world) have up until very recently only thought in terms of meat when they think about Halal; chilled and frozen beef, chicken, lamb or mutton. What they are fast realising is that the Halal sector includes an ever-widening spectrum of other foods – convenience foods, ready-cooked meals, sweet and savoury snacks, drinks – as well as non-food items such as toiletries, cosmetics, health products and even lifestyle electronics.

Not only does the Halal food sector include a dazzling array of ethnic and cultural cuisines from around the world, there is also a growing demand for indigenous European dishes to be available as Halal options for an increasingly Europeanised new generation of middle-income Muslim consumers with sophisticated tastes.

Retail giants do not like to take chances. Judging by the decisions by Carrefour and Auchan in Europe, Tesco and Asda in the UK, and more recently Walmart, Costco and Shoprite in the US deciding to take advantage of the growing demand for Halal food, we can be fairly certain that these moves are likely to represent long-term trends. And as trends are indicative of speed and direction, they can give producers a good shot at getting their ball through the car window.

Right Product, Right Package, Right Shelf

A study done on successful innovation in the food and beverage industry[1] concluded that (a) success will be linked to in-depth market knowledge and consumer understanding; (b) established health and safety criteria will provide less room for innovation; (c) successful innovation will require investment in both competence and technologies; (d) companies that fail to innovate, due to short term pressure, are likely to suffer long term losses; (e) companies that make use of retailers issues and problems as their own advantage are most likely to succeed.

Our look at the European market clearly indicates that there are opportunities for producers of Halal products. Tesco has recently announced that it will be sending products from 5 Malaysian SME’s into 180 of its stores in the UK in 2010. This initiative began with one trial store in Slough in 2006. And in the first years they were trying to fill their shelves with Halal products, the difficulty was not ‘which products’ but ‘where are the products’? So Tesco’s first task was to bring the Malaysian suppliers up to speed with the quality and quantity they would need to put Malaysian products on their shelves.

So which products? The old adage about not taking coal to Newcastle although clichéd, is often overlooked and worth bearing in mind. You will have a hard time selling gateaux to the French. But the opposite is also true, you will not sell Chinese noodles to the Arabs in the UAE. Be driven by demand, not product. Its is easier to make what people want to buy than to make them want to buy what you make!

Meat products are extremely difficult to sell into the European market as a result of government restrictions; and as we have seen, the retail giants are now looking beyond the narrow band of Halal meat and are sourcing other Halal products. A 300sqm Halal section in a typical supermarket will comprise around 350 different non-meat products, representing a significant opportunity for Halal producers to establish a foothold in what is likely to be a long term developing market.

It is probably fair to say that a product with a recognised Halal certificate and logo will be easier to position in the European markets than one without; and if it is not yet true today, it is highly likely to be true very soon. An expert from the world’s leading Halal manufacturer commented to me at MIHAS, ‘You need a good product, a Halal certificate, and the rest is all marketing.’ And in this respect packaging is of paramount importance. The package is the meeting place of product and marketing. From the consumer’s immediate point of view, your package is your product. What does it say to the consumer? What emotional response will it generate? Trust? Confidence? Desire? Or indifference, mistrust, poor quality?

People read packages, and this is even truer today than it was ten years ago. The average consumer is increasingly knowledgeable; many are semi-expert in the fields of nutrition and health maintenance; and then you have to add to that the ethical and eco-friendly aspect of marketing today. An indication of this is shown by the US health food pioneer Wholefoods. This one-store start-up in the 1970’s is now a 3.7 billion dollar company with 26,000 employees. Wholefoods recorded an average growth over the last 5 years of 19%, compared with the 2.5% of the general US grocery market, very similar to the European figures.

This is a clear confirmation that the average consumer is becoming more aware and careful about what he or she eats. So, your packaging is the opportunity to tell your story, to tell the consumer that you understand his needs and preferences. You need to assure him that he can trust your product, which is what will make him keep buying it. It is an opportunity that your company has, in just a few seconds, to catch the passing eyes of the consumer and draw them into the world of your product, your company, your philosophy, your values.

The success of the Fair Trade movement in the UK and elsewhere demonstrates that ethical and moral values are strong inducements to purchase, and if the product is good enough, to re-purchase and create every manufacturers dream, brand loyalty. The Halal brand represents extremely powerful values that are common to 25% of the world in particular, and almost all of mankind in general. And yet, so few Halal producers take advantage of this to state what Halal really represents; most seem to think that a Halal logo says it all. It does not, it is merely the opening line of an important and as yet untold story.

Brand Values

Halal is a massively under-utilised global brand. The possibilities of promoting products on the strength of their Halal qualities and values have hardly begun to be explored. It is a near certainty that the companies that take fullest advantage of this possibility will be successful brand leaders in the Halal markets of tomorrow.

However, as with any other set of brand values, they have to be more than skin-deep. The top branding gurus all say that to succeed, you have to live the brand, and this is also true for Halal. It represents the deeply-held core values of obedience to the Creator for close to 2 billion people. It is not just a logo. The product has to be good; the branding has to represent this, along with the associated brand values; and the brand values have to permeate through the company, be it big or small. To succeed, the values also have to be the values of the company, of the directors and the employees, right throughout the organisation.

A good example to drive this point home – not about Halal, but about brand values in general – is that of Starbucks. With their constant emphasis on customer service, the brand manager at Starbucks recounted his understandable delight upon hearing one of the lowly baristas saying, ‘We are not in the coffee business serving people; we are in the people business serving coffee.’  When he heard that, he knew that the core brand values were getting all the way through the corporation to the place where they ultimately count; the everyday front line that deals with the all-important customer.

The Food For Thought report cited ambivalence or inconsistent levels of commitment by top management as one of the main reasons for failure. You will not be able to transmit the core values of your organization to your staff if you are not convinced about them yourself. If you do not live it, then why should they? If they do not get the message, then neither will the product, and nor will the customer.

Brand values have to come from top management through to the staff, into the product itself and into the package design and marketing material, in order to position the product on the right shelf to catch the customer’s roving eye amidst all the noise and competition. You have no more than a few seconds…and then its too late. They moved on.

By Hajj Abdalhamid Evans, Founder HalalFocus.com

The writer may be contacted at hamid@imaratconsultants.com

Source: Malaysia Trade

Related posts:

1. Thai Halal Food Producers to Join Paris Expo
2. ‘Consider mergers, acquisitions, equity in existing halal producers’
3. Local Meat Producers Urged To Compete In Global Halal Market
4. Ottawa urging Canadian food producers to explore global halal market
5. Russia: Yamal Looks to Export Reindeer Meat to Qatar

The extent to which the KFC Halal trial has stirred public interest, both online and in the streets shows how much of an issue this is…and how deep it goes.

Naturally for the Muslims, eating Halal is an identity issue, especially for those of us who live in a predominantly non-Muslim country. As a minority, holding to Halal foods re-enforces the sense of who we are, and nothing does that quite like food does. Food issues, as we can see, go deep for everyone.

Being able to eat the food of where we live is a big part of feeling at home in a particular place, so being able to eat in local fast food joints and take-away’s, even if they are not the best nutritional choices, undoubtedly have an appeal in that they give a sense of belonging.

And this may have added to the disappointment of many Muslims who realised that the KFC bucket, while so close, was still so far away. Mechanical slaughter is beyond the pale for many Muslims, and we get a strong sense that this number is increasing. The issues of stunning and mechanical slaughter are coming under the spotlight all over the world, particularly for poultry which are, after all, the most popular protein.

This was a classic case of a mainstream producer doing the absolute minimum to gain access the Muslim consumers, a pattern that is seen all too often throughout the Halal marketplace all over the world, and of course there is always a certifier ready to comply.

Actually, the certifiers are really not to blame, there are religious rulings available that will cover almost every kind of slaughter, and getting everyone to agree on these issues is an impossible dream; it is not going to happen.

But full disclosure on labeling and being clear about what kind of process was applied is as important to the Halal consumer as nutritional information is to mainstream consumers…and maybe even more so.

Muslim consumers have flexed their muscles in the KFC Halal trial, and this may well be a useful learning experience not just for KFC, but for all others venturing into the Halal marketplace looking to do business. Find out what the customers really want.

The other interesting aspect of this whole affair is the impact it has had on KFC’s mainstream customers. Without a shadow of a doubt, the same protesters in Blackburn or Colne have all eaten Halal kebabs and curries, and not given the matter a second thought. After all, its foreign food, innit?

But when it comes to take-away chicken, burger and fries territory it somehow feels closer to home, and Halal becomes a different kind of issue, and identity issue. Not that there is really anything particularly British about imported American fast food, but one can understand the gut reaction.

Whether KFC are finding that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’ remains to be seen. This affair has certainly boosted their Google search rates; searches for ‘halal kfc’ have increased 800% over the past 12 months! To what extent that is translating into sales remains to be seen, and we will have to wait and see how the KFC Halal trial goes. I guess the jury is still out, even though the Mufti has spoken.

If the situation over at the Quick counter in France is anything to go by, KFC may well be quite happy with the results. We heard from a wee birdie (well, it was quite a big birdie actually, more like a turkey) that going Halal was a good move for Quick, and they may well be increasing the number of restaurants with Halal menus in France.

The reactions may well be interesting.

Related posts:

1. KFC’s UK ‘Halal Trial’ put on trial…and found guilty
2. EU: Stunning of cattle a big issue in Europe’s abattoirs
3. GCC Panel to issue halal food guidelines
4. Blunder as wrong East Lancashire KFC listed on halal guide
5. UK: EDL targets Blackburn KFC in protest over Halal chicken

In the UK, KFC’s now infamous ‘Halal Trial’ has taken a turn that may well prove to be a pivotal one in the shift of Halal into the mainstream. In any event, it has uncovered a series of misconceptions that can now be seen in a better light.

KFC’s 80-plus restaurants that are offering a Halal menu were all certified by the Halal Food Authority (HFA), and KFC went to some lengths on their website to

• a) assure the Muslims that the chickens were Halal, and
• b) appease the animal welfare lobby that animal welfare issues had been considered, and that electrical stunning (an industry norm) had been used.

There have been three basic kinds of responses to this move.

• Consumers who could no longer get their favourite pork-based meals have reacted angrily.
• Other groups, based on their limited understanding of Halal, have denounced the entire project as barbaric.
• And many Muslims, who felt that the Halal compliance had not been correctly carried out, have complained and proposed a boycott of KFC.

What has recently come to light is that the chickens were slaughtered by a mechanical process, and not done by hand by a Muslim slaughterman. Both stunning (especially for poultry) and mechanical slaughter are highly controversial issues for Halal compliance, but the general consensus is that while stunning might be disapproved of due to the possibility of birds dying before slaughter, it is generally considered acceptable by a majority of Ulama around the world.

Mechanical slaughter, on the other hand, while it is acceptable to some, is generally considered unacceptable, and is excluded from most Halal standards, and notably Malaysia’s MS1500 standard was updated in 2008 and now does not permit mechanical slaughter for poultry.

HFA’s ruling on mechanical slaughter can be seen now to have been rather misleading for KFC, who should really have done more homework on the whole issue. Clearly KFC, as per general industry practice when it comes to Halal, have tried to do a little as possible to be Halal compliant and thereby access the considerable Muslim consumer market in the UK.

Indeed, now we can better understand KFC comments on their website that assures customers that the very same chickens that everyone finds so finger-licking good are also being served up in the Halal outlets. As it turns out, not only are they the same chickens, but they are being killed using exactly the same process as the non-Halal birds, other than their being a Muslim ‘monitor’ somewhere on the premises.

Whether the tasmiyyah was done by tape recording is not yet clear (if anyone knows, please tell us…) but it is generally unacceptable anyway, and there is no way one monitor could say ‘Bismillah Allahu Akbar’ 20,000 times per hour…yes, that’s how fast the line goes.

So, while the customers who mourned the loss of the Big Daddy have a legitimate complaint that they now have to go another few miles for their take-away, the ‘barbaric’ argument can now falls apart; the chickens were treated the same as all the rest of the KFC birds

The Muslims in general have responded with a commendable degree of restraint and dignity, and following a constructive meeting between the Lancashire Council of Mosques and KFC representatives, a clear and articulate letter to the general Muslim community was published on 16^th April declaring that the KFC outlets were not considered Halal.

Ultimately, there are no real villains in this drama. It is evidence of the ongoing evolution of the Halal market in the UK, and proof that companies that want to enter this market need to do their market research in a deeper way, and not just opt for the line of least resistance.

Given KFC’s involvement in the Halal sector in many other parts of the world, one may wonder why they did not take advantage of the available expertise. KFC Malaysia, after all, supplies non-stunned chickens for their Brunei outlets, as per Brunei’s Halal Standard, even though they use stunned chickens from the same supplier for their outlets in Malaysia and Singapore.

It is not yet clear how this will play out, and it may well become something of a land-mark case for the future of the Halal industry.

As a footnote, one suspects that many of the more vocal groups that have been shouting about barbaric practices and excessive pandering to immigrants have probably been eating Halal curries and kebabs for the past twenty years without thinking twice. Its only when Halal is applied to good old British fare…oh actually, I guess I mean greasy American fast food… that it really strikes a nerve.

Perhaps the only thing stranger has been the parallel drama across the Channel over the Quick restaurant chain’s decision to go Halal-only in eight outlets in France. It is one thing for the English to defend their special relationship with KFC, but when the French start defending their right to eat American fast food in the name of French national identity, you know there is something deeper going on.

And that is a whole autre histoire…

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5. USA: Al-Safa Chicken Products are no Longer ‘Zabihah’ or Hand Slaughtered

So when Crescent Foods got a call from Wal-Mart buyers, saying that they were looking for Halal chicken products and someone in Colorado had recommended Crescent, it was clear that this was a different trend at work. This was not just Halal going mainstream, this was the mainstream going Halal.

For many food producers, and Halal producers especially, meeting the exacting, and somewhat complex standards demanded by Wal-Mart can add up to an insurmountable challenge. You have to deal on their terms. For Crescent, however, following the vision of founder and CEO Ahmad Adam, meeting Wal-Mart’s standards did not present any problem.

“We realized from the beginning that to succeed as a world class Halal chicken producer, we would have to meet, and even surpass, the highest standards of the mainstream food industry. This has always been part of our vision. Our latest round of upgrades and improvements meant that we were already inline with what was expected of us from Wal-Mart,” said Mr Adam. “We had seen this coming.”

Consequently, negotiations proceeded rapidly and the first deliveries were completed in November 2008 to stores in Dearborn, Sterling Heights, Rochester Hills, Chesterfield and Shelby.

Crescent products currently carried at Wal-Mart include a variety of fresh whole chicken and tray-packed chicken parts. Certainly, if all goes according to plans on both sides, the number of products and outlets will increase in the future.

“For Crescent, this is all about developing beneficial long-term relationships,” said Mr Adam. “Whether it is with the Amish farms where our vegetarian-fed chickens are raised, our local neighbourhood community stores, international airlines or with Wal-Mart…it is all about delivering the highest quality and service, pure and simple! That’s what the Crescent approach to Halal is really all about.”

In many ways, Crescent’s deal with Wal-Mart is something of a breakthrough in the Halal food industry in America, and is an indication of the way that Halal is moving into the mainstream, not just in the USA, but also around the world.

“We are really seeing Halal developing as a global movement now, and of course the USA, with a well-established Muslim population of around 8-9 million people, is a big part of this movement. According to the marketing group that did the study, US Muslims have an overall purchasing power of around $170 billion dollars a year…this is a very significant market sector, and one that is expanding and is increasingly getting noticed by the major players,” Mr Adam continued.

The challenge for smaller Halal producers is to not leave it just to the big players to make the running in the Halal market, but to carve out a niche for themselves in the Halal sector.

This is not a fad. Demand for Halal products right across the range of product offering and price, is way ahead of supply, and is going to increase dramatically over the coming years.

Clearly, the world’s largest retailer has certainly taken notice, and it seems little doubt that we can expect to see Halal products appearing with increasing regularity in our mainstream stores.

This is part of a wider global pattern that sees many of the biggest food industry players now with serious long-term commitments to Halal. For manufacturers and retailers alike, small or big, Halal is appearing on the horizon as beacon of hope on an often gloomy skyline.

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Halal – A Perfect Storm On The Horizon

Markets, like everything else, go in cycles, and we are all of us well aware that we are going through a period of market contraction. But contraction and expansion go together, they are one of the pairs of opposites upon which Allah has created existence, and we can be confident that contraction in any given time is the preparation, the source even, for an expansion to follow.

For the past five years, the market for Halal products and services has been emerging as a potent market force. With close to 2 billion Muslims making up the foundation, and with Halal products increasingly used by the general consuming public all over the world, the Halal market represents the appearance of a new economic paradigm that is on the tipping point of becoming a global movement.

There is a convergence of common interest – religious, political, economic, social  – that is now clustering around the concept of Halal, and all that it implies, and these interests show all the signs of building into a perfect storm.

Blowing in from S E Asia

People have been working with Halal for many years, and in many places. But, for the purpose of this article, this particular storm started brewing in South East Asia. Although Halal food has been produced and sold all over the world for a long time, it is only in recent years that Halal emerged as a defining market parameter.

Malaysia, with a multi-cultural society, has a well-established Halal certification system, and under the previous Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Badawi, Halal was identified as a potential engine of growth for both the domestic and export economy.

This was perhaps the first time that Halal was seen as an economic driver, and this lead to new initiatives such as MIHAS, (a Halal-only trade expo), the World Halal Forum (an industry-led forum) and The Halal Journal, (a business magazine for the Halal-sector stake-holders). These new initiatives, with varying degrees of success re-defined the way that Halal products were thought about, especially by government officers and industry players.

Because all of these projects had an international perspective, they attracted a strong response from like-minded individuals and companies keen to see the development of this new market. And so the international network strengthened, new ideas and initiatives emerged, and the notion of a Halal Industry began to take shape.

And although one may comment that Halal food has been around for 1400 years, it became clear that with the globalisation of trade and industry, with the new high-tech developments in manufacturing and processing of foods, and the complex world of ingredients, flavourings and additives, a new perspective of Halal and how it was to be applied to the 21^st century needed to be developed.

The Birth of a Global Halal Industry

If we allow ourselves to recognise that Halal is now an industry, we can identify five key elements that form the dynamics of this market:

• Government authorities,
• Industry stakeholders,
• Finance,
• Standards and Certification,
• and, perhaps most importantly, the consumers, you and me.

Halal as a political platform

Governments, especially in South East Asia, recognised that Halal has the potential to be a real engine of growth for their local economies. Impacting agriculture, processing, manufacturing, food service, restaurants, travel and hospitality, retail, import and export, logistics, standards development, training, media and events and more, Halal, once you encourage it to take root and grow, has the potential to have a real impact on the domestic economy.

Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines all began a variety of government-led initiatives to use Halal as an effective engine of growth for the domestic economies, and in the case of Thailand, to build a Halal food export industry to supply overseas markets.

With varying degrees of success, and almost regardless of the actual outcomes, these initiatives have positioned Halal as a significant economic driver, and as a result, also as a political platform with a potentially unifying character. After all, in many countries, the Halal food is produced for the Muslims, but not by the Muslims. As one astute commentator noted, “We kill it and eat it…and in between everyone else is getting rich.” So in a country like Malaysia, the promotion of Halal food affects all cultural and racial groups; the Chinese who manufacture, the Malays who eat it and the Indians who run restaurants.

Halal Powerhouses

Certainly countries such as Australia and Brazil have built entire food industries based on supplying Halal food to the Middle Eastern markets. The Australian red meat export industry is a powerful machine that brings together the farmers, processors, government health and safety bodies as well as marketing agencies, and in collaboration with the local Muslim certification agencies, have made Halal Aussie beef a common sight in supermarkets all over the Muslim world.

And in an age when the corporations are often as powerful as the nation states, the Big Guns of manufacturing, retail and restaurant chains have all been on the ball when it comes to making the transition to Halal wherever the market demands it.

Leaving the politics of the free market aside for the moment, we can see that food giants such as Nestlé, by pioneering the development of international Halal manufacturing protocols, and with around 20% of their facilities worldwide now Halal only, have helped to establish Halal in the international arena.

The big retailers and restaurant chains, recognising that Muslims are as susceptible to marketing slogans and the taste of fast food as everyone else, have also been quick to jump on the bandwagon. You can have a Big Mac in Makkah. You can buy Halal in Tesco and Carrefour. It is too late to say that the big corporations don’t belong in the Halal market, they are already way ahead of us, waiting for us to show up hungry and ready to purchase something. The issue for us, as Muslims, is rather, “Are we just going to be passive consumers in the biggest new market paradigm of the century?”

And the Halal market is the only arena that I am aware of where the manufacturers are saying to the Muslims, “Just tell us what to do and we will do it.”

Are You Certified?

The issue of who sets the standards, who does the audit and issues the certificate is, with all due respect to those concerned, something of a can of Halal (or not!) worms. Generally speaking, in South East Asia, in their multi-cultural societies, this is a relatively well-developed government-run operation. In the Muslim majority countries, Halal is much lower profile, and Halal is by and large assumed more than it is enforced or regulated.

In the Muslim minority countries, and this is perhaps what concerns us all the most, it is something of a free-for-all where anyone can set themselves up as a Halal certifier and in addition to conducting the audit (to their own standard) and issuing the certificate, some are also acting as sales agents charging commission on sales.

Clearly the one-man certification agency auditing and certifying a multi-million dollar operation is an imbalanced and unsustainable situation. It is also totally out of synch with the practiced norms of manufacturing procedures all over the world. A clear separation between standards, accreditation, audit and certificate issuance is the manufacturing industry norm, and in order for Halal to live up to its full potential, these protocols will sooner or later be practiced in the Halal industry also.

And not just for ethical reasons. The dynamics of the market have a role to play here. The large third-party auditing firms like Intertek and SGS have got their bottom-line radars focused on the Halal market, where the revenue from auditing is highly attractive and is now clearly in their cross-hairs. It is now only a question of time before those Big Guns join the other Big Guns in the Halal sector.

And then there is the question of Finance…

Natural Allies

Halal products and Islamic Finance are the two major Shariah-compliant industries that, combined, are already in the trillion dollar bracket, and growing. The curious fact is that there is currently very limited relations between these two, with very few Islamic Banks doing anything to promote the Halal market, and very few Halal producers even thinking about their sources of finance.

The inevitable convergence of common interests here is likely to lead to a new collaboration between these industries. One hopes that the current emphasis on ethical investment and business practices will filter through on both sides, and that a new Halal market economy will emerge in which our finance and food will both come from pure sources.

In this respect, the current recession opens a new door to examine the core principles of the Shariah requirements for trade and commerce. With entire economies collapsing through the false foundations of the ‘riba-upon-riba’ credit schemes upon which they were built, and when the proposed cure for the disease is to create more zero-worth credit to bail out the very institutions that are the root of the disease (and indebting the entire population in the process), it is sometimes hard to be optimistic.

But we know Allah’s promise that with hardship comes ease, and that where there is a disease, the cure is close by, and we have every reason to see the current scenario as a turning point.

And this is where we have to play our part.

Halal Consumer Power

Without the Halal consumer, there is no market, no industry, no political platform. In the farm-to-fork equation, the fork is king. And nowhere is this more true than in the USA. It is easy to feel a passive consumer; the corporate giants have so much influence, and we are so bombarded by slogans and subliminal messages that at times it feels as if we hardly make our own decisions anymore.

And yet despite this invasive background hum, as Halal consumers we are, at this point in time, actually in an unusually influential position. Manufacturers are desperate to find new markets, new trends and new customers, some magic bullet that will save them from the recession.

As the Halal market grows, the demographic of the Muslim consumer comes increasingly into focus. Unnoticed for decades, this New Halal Consumer suddenly opens up a new horizon of possibilities. At around 25% of the world’s population, we are probably the largest single niche market in existence.

It is no surprise that A T Kearney, in their paper “Addressing the Muslim Market – can you afford not to?” conclude that ‘since Muslims are the fastest growing consumer segment in the world, any company that is not considering how to serve them is missing a significant opportunity…with many of the world’s largest consumer segments reaching a saturation point, the Muslim consumer is fast becoming a new outlet to build a base for future growth.’

Written in 2007, this comment is even truer today than it was at the time of writing. And they are not alone in this view. Advertising giants JWT reached a similar conclusion in their review of the US Muslims consumers, noting that no-one was really targeting this consumer group, 75% of whom feel that they are ignored by marketing campaigns. And this in the country that gave us the expression ‘the customer is always right!’

In today’s economic and political climate, it seems inevitable that the marketing directors will quickly recognise that there is a huge untapped reservoir under their noses. At a recent Halal Industry conference in Chicago, we were interested to note the presence of Big Brand multinational manufacturers of soft drinks, chewing gum, health supplements, army rations, vaccines, infant formula, ingredients and more…all of whom were already targeting Halal as a new market segment.

And while we may lament the presence of big non-Muslim corporate muscle in the Halal sector, our best approach is to engage and influence these big players. Generally they are open and respectful, and recognise that they need to understand this new arena and really serve the needs of their customers.

And this in turn gives us, the consumers a significant degree of influence. If we form local consumer groups, lobby for more Halal products, better standards, more transparency, moral and ethical business transactions, I believe that we will be surprised by the results. We are the customers, and we are right!

And here comes the Perfect Storm

A convergence of common interest is a powerful phenomenon. When groups of any kind and size voluntarily come together for a shared common goal – any goal, they can become an unstoppable force.

And this is where the Perfect Storm comes in. Given the easier political climate in the US now, given the economic hardship that is demanding new marketing strategies, given the dawning awareness of the spending power of America’s 8-9 million Muslims, given that Halal products can be consumed by everyone, and given the global momentum that is gathering around this topic…yes, I think it is fair to say that there is a Perfect Halal Storm on the horizon.

Abdalhamid Evans

hamid@halalfocus.com

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These two industries are effectively the twin cornerstones of the Halal Market economy. By this, we are referring to a dynamic market arena for Halal products and services, trading according to halal transactions and contracts, using – ultimately – halal currencies.

The two major components of this market are Halal food and Islamic finance. These two elements represent an emerging market force that is effectively the direct result of the impact of Islam on commerce.

These two – food and finance – are not separate markets. They are rather two faces of one coin, with similar developmental histories and with many parallels. Both began out of the need of the Muslims to have Halal goods and financial services. Initially, both served a primarily Muslim market.

Those who were quick to understand the potential power of this market, got into position. The major food producers – Nestle, Unilever, Walls – and fast-food chains – McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, and newcomers Nando’s and Dixy Chicken– as well as the major meat producers around the world – Australia, New Zealand, India, Brazil, Argentina, USA and UK – all saw the potential of the Halal market and took advantage of this multi-billion dollar market.

This has been basically paralleled by the development of Islamic banking. Initially developed by the Muslims to serve the needs of the Muslims, the major banking houses around the world, mostly from the non-Muslim world, have been quick to recognise the potential returns.

If you monitor news items on Islamic banking, everyday you will see new developments worldwide; in Malaysia, now with both domestic and international fully-fledged Islamic banks, plus every other bank with an Islamic window demonstrating the rapid growth in this field. Similarly in the GCC region, Islamic banking is developing at an unprecedented rate with both local and international banks jockeying for position.

In the UK, with the opening of the first dedicated Islamic bank, the Islamic Bank of Britain, and the move by Lloyds TSB to offer Islamic banking on the high street can leave no doubt that Islamic banking is transforming from a specialist to a main-stream phenomenon.

We maintain again that these are not two separate phenomena; they are two parts of one phenomenon, the impact of Islam on commerce, and the inevitable emergence of a global Halal market economy.

Sustaining growth and maintaining boundaries.

So where is this heading? Islamic banking is a work in progress, not a finished product. Like the market for Halal products, it is a fledgling industry now developing global standards. Both Halal food and Islamic finance are driven by two dynamic – and sometimes opposing – forces that fuel their growth and determine their shape; the desire for growth and innovation – and therefore market share – and the need to remain within the parameters of the Shariah of Islam.

In both the Halal food market and the Islamic finance market, we can perceive similar prevailing conditions.

• Vibrant growing market demand, both retail and commercial
• Strong interest from producers and suppliers worldwide
• A dawning recognition of the potential size and strength of a market of 2 billion consumers
• Dynamic crossover components – not just a market for the Muslims. Among both producers and consumers there is a strong non-Muslim element.
• Global reach: Oceania, Asia, GCC region, Europe, US.

Recent geopolitical currents have driven Islam firmly into the public awareness, most of it negative, but that is not necessarily a drawback. Both Halal food and Islamic finance are riding on this wave of heightened awareness and curiosity, which is not about to diminish. And there are other factors at work.

For example, ethical awareness is becoming a dominant feature in many market sectors, and markedly so in the food market. Halal food represents the ‘lawful and wholesome’, therefore it encompasses such elements as the current – and growing ­– concern for the environment, ethical and humane treatment of animals, healthier meat, moderation in consumption, and quality control from the farm to the plate.

Islamic finance similarly must represent justice and equity in the transaction, abandoning riba according to the command of Allah, removal of doubt in transactions, sharing risk and reward in investment, protecting the disadvantaged.

So, what began as a service just for the Muslims, has expanded to serve the needs of others also. Halal meat is not just the preference of the Muslims, as the figures in UK demonstrate, where there are 6 million consumers of Halal meat, and only 2 million Muslims. Similarly, Islamic banking is also the choice of many non-Muslims, as in the figures from one of the leading Islamic banks in Malaysia, 80% of whose commercial customers are non-Muslim Chinese.

So where is this leading?

Two interrelated components that began separately, serving the same market, are now expanding to serve a wider market, both high growth sectors of their particular markets. And both now calling for clearer and more transparent standards. In this respect, Islamic finance is more advanced, with the creation of the Islamic Financial Services Board and other entities serving as consultative bodies to develop global standards for Islamic banking practices worldwide.

As a media company that focuses exclusively on the Halal markets, we have from day one considered Islamic finance to be an integral component of the Halal market. We predict that as these two elements continue to grow, the zone of overlap will naturally increase, creating a synergy that will not only benefit both markets, but will actually benefit people all over the world, from all races, colours and creeds.

Why? Because Halal is for everyone, not just the Muslims, as is stated in the Qur’an,  “Oh Mankind! Consume what is lawful and wholesome from the earth.”  For a great many people this includes not just the food, but also the transactions that produce and procure it. As Imam Malik said in al-Muwatta, “What makes a transaction Halal, makes it Halal. What makes it haram, makes it haram.”

So I return again to my opening statement, with an added component – Halal products and Islamic finance are the two main components that comprise the impact of the Islamic Shariah on the world of commerce.

One of the perceived weaknesses with the Islamic banking sector is that it is not connected to any real market or industry; it is still, like the riba-based banking system, still primarily concerned with ‘making money’ as opposed to promoting trade and production. As an industry, it is still focused on the same issues as the riba-based model. The development of the Islamic banking system is a work in progress. It is only a step. The danger is that it will remain a banking-based financial model instead of a trade and production-based model.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Venture capital, for example, is mostly conspicuous by its absence in the world of Islamic banking, and yet, by its very nature, it is based on the Islamic model of financing. Venture capital is a process of cooperation between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, with risk-sharing an essential element.

Entrepreneurs provide the bright ideas and hard work, and the venture capitalists furnish the money — either their own or that of their clients — as partners, not lenders. If the business succeeds both parties benefit and in case it fails the entrepreneur is not obligated to repay the investment. This is the essence and spirit of Islamic finance.

Venture capital has played a leading role in the development of innovative industrial development in the USA. The Silicon Valley computer revolution was fuelled by venture capital; HP, Intel, Sun Micro Systems, Apple Computer, Netscape, Intuit, Compaq Computer and Cisco Systems were financed by the venture capital industry in the form of equity capital.

Venture capital rewards innovation, bright ideas, hard work, intelligent risk-taking, honesty; it acts as a catalyst that creates genuine new wealth, new jobs and new industries.

I believe that it is fair to say that one of the contributing factors behind the Muslim world’s general backwardness has been the lack of readily available venture capital. Is the job of the Islamic banks? Someone must take the lead in developing investment models, along Shariah-compliant lines, that will really develop the economy – create wealth, not just make money for ‘the Money’.

A technically interest-free version of conventional western banking cannot be the only goal. That is a bit like taking the alcohol out of wine; it may make it technically drinkable, but it is not the best thing that you can do with grapes!

It is time that the Islamic banking industry looked more closely at the role that it plays in promoting industry and trade. They have demonstrated that they can swim with the big fish; now it is time to make the garden grow (and the farm, the factory, the port and the market!)

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European Halal Market Outlook

There is a useful feature available on Google, whereby you can see the interest in a particular subject, based on search frequency, over a given period of time. Worldwide interest in Halal, based on Google searches, has doubled in the past five years, providing us with some statistical foundation for claims that the global Halal market is growing.

It is clear from the graph that the change over the past 18 months has been more dramatic than over the preceding four years, confirming the view that the Halal market is heating up, despite a general cooling in many other sectors.

These figures are more than re-enforced by the statistics from HalalFocus.com, where visits have increased five-fold over the past 18 months, with over 70% of new visitors adding the site to their favourite bookmarks list. Visitors from the USA, UK and Malaysia are consistently in the top two slots, but Germany and France are consistently in the top ten, confirming the growing importance of Halal in European markets.

Halal in Europe

Without going into the claims and counter-claims circulating on YouTube about the changing demographics in Europe, it seems to be apparent that the Muslim
population of Europe is not only increasing, but has an above average growth rate. Certainly the European Muslim consumer is becoming a target demographic
for retailers and manufacturers, especially in the food sector. As one up-market restaurateur in London commented, referring to his Ramadan
fast-breaking customers, “They’re all young, professional and moneyed and all quite trendy – they’ve got disposable incomes to go out and have really great food, and they know they can get Halal meat here.”

Ramadan-based promotions were more apparent this year throughout the western world, and none more so than the prime-time ads on French TV for a line of ready-made Halal
pasta meals. Halal food is increasingly available in mainstream retail outlets throughout Europe, including under the supermarkets ‘own label’ offerings.

It is important to recognise that what we are seeing now is in many cases the result of decisions made several years ago; such is the time-frame for big corporate decisions to become visible in the marketplace.

Similarly, it is significant that Halal is now being seen as a potential engine of growth in economies from all over the world, leading us to surmise that we are likely to see a continued increase in the Halal market, driven by growing consumer demand (and confidence) and the retailers’ willingness to supply it.

Furthermore, this new view of Halal as an engine of growth is going to be underpinned with policy decisions by governments keen to find ways to strengthen fragile economies.

Balancing Priorities

Opening up potential fertile new areas, without alienating existing supporters is a balancing act in both politics and business. On the political front, the recognition that developing products and services for the Halal market can play a significant role in both domestic and export markets is becoming more common.

Political and economic climate also plays a role in determining the extent to which producers will openly target and supply Muslim consumers, and also the extent to which those consumers feel confident to demand the kind of products and services they want.

The change of administration in the USA generated an almost immediate sigh of relief among the 8-9 million US Muslims. This was accompanied by an economic turmoil that saw many of the largest players in the food sector looking around for new markets and strategies to maintain market share – or in some cases just to try and stay afloat – and finding the Halal sector a promising candidate.

This brought Muslim consumer power into the spotlight, and the realisation that US Muslims have a combined spending power of an estimated $170 billion is opening up a new market niche. Not only have WalMart and CostCo recognised the importance of this market, but some major food producers are also considering serving the Halal market as a means of breathing fresh life into a tired business plan.

The question is often how to do this without alienating existing customers. In the UK, Dominos Pizza and KFC have changed to a Halal menu in outlets with a high Muslim population, with signs in the windows and certificates on the wall…and not without some degree of backlash.

In Finland, McDonald’s is selling Halal chicken burgers without making any publicity at all, buying more than half of their chickens from Danish producer Danpol, who comply with Halal procedures, and saying that their decision is based on quality, rather than religion. Whether this will produce its own backlash remains to be seen, but the decision is an interesting one. For this is perhaps where the real opportunity lies, in the cross-over market.

Access All Areas

Halal meat and poultry, if the raw materials are high quality, and if the Halal guidelines are correctly followed, should be among the highest quality produce available anywhere. Correct Halal slaughter means less blood in the carcass, less toxin and bacteria content in the meat; it is safer, healthier and has a longer shelf-life, and despite the negative image of Halal slaughter, when done correctly, it is less traumatic for the animals.

Halal food has the potential to be the ultimate cross-over market product, and the companies that recognise this, and can build it into their strategic planning, will be the ones to put themselves into a strong market position – if they can get the puzzle right.

The Emerging European Market
There is no question that the European Halal market is a viable and untapped emerging market. The question of how best to access it is a more complex problem that might be the case in other minority markets, such as the in North America, where the Muslim populations are arguably more integrated and affluent, and most people are originally from somewhere else anyway.

The socio-political landscape in Europe is more complicated. It is made up of different countries, each with a Muslim population originating from a different continent, bringing their own differences of culture, taste and schools of thought that become merged, to a greater or lesser extent, with their new European Muslim identities. Not to mention their own ideas of what constitutes Halal!

Add to this the complexities of European politics, and the often difficult relationships with the wider Muslim world and their own Muslim minorities, as well as the influence of the right-wing and animal welfare groups, and it seems clear that developing the lucrative Halal markets in Europe may well be a long and interesting road.

Perhaps the weakest link in the value chain is the credibility of the domestic Halal certification bodies. The development of Halal as an industry is in turn forcing the evolution of the
certification process away from the image of the religious figure with limited understanding of the 21^st century food industry, and toward the emerging picture of a new hybrid figure, as well-versed in the appropriate Shariah law as in the complexities of food science and market logistics.

It was a telling moment, in the spring of 2009 in Chicago, when the quality control expert from one of the world’s largest food and ingredient manufacturers outlined, in a formal presentation, what ‘big industry’ needs from the Halal certification providers: independence and transparency of a) Standards, b) Audit & c) Certification and the emergence of competent Accreditation Bodies to oversee the whole process.

It is highly likely that with the increasingly prominent presence of major retailers and manufacturers in the Halal sector, the levels of professionalism among the Halal specialists will
have to match up the expected norms of the food industry. The more the American and European stakeholders come into the picture, the faster this process is likely to be.

Abdalhamid Evans

Senior Analyst, Imarat Consultants

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