THE Brunei Halal brand had its first regional showcase at the ASEAN
Food Conference here next week as the government continues its drive to
globalise the brand.
“The
Brunei Halal brand will definitely be presented. It is an opportunity
for us to present our brand now,” Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Hamid Hj Mohd
Jaafar, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Primary
Resources, said yesterday.
“The participants will be made up of basically scientists and it is a biannual event related to food,” he said.
About 500 participants from ASEAN countries attended the October summit.
The
Brunei Halal brand is on target with its brand development schedule
including the review of about 50 products for release by April next
year, said Noel Shield, interim chief executive officer of Ghanim
International Food Corporation Sdn Bhd.
Ghanim International is
the Brunei company that handles and manages the marketing of the
Sultanate’s premium halal brand which takes advantage of the country’s
reputation in selling goods to a growing Muslim market. The company is
looking at major retailers such as Tesco and Carrefour to help sell
products registered under the Brunei Halal brand to its target markets,
Shield said in a previous interview.
During the recent
International Halal Food Conference, marketing experts said Brunei is
the first in the Muslim world to put together a national halal brand
that is intended to push the commercial aspects of consumption that
complies with the teachings of syariah.
“The local food industry
has a lot of challenges, and that is why the AFC (ASEAN Food
Conference) will be an opportunity to network with other experts. We
will have a few hundred participants, so they will present their new
findings so we can learn from them and sit down and talk about the
challenges that we are facing,” said Pg Hjh Rosidah Pg Hj Metussin,
assistant director of agriculture, from the Agriculture Department.
The
three-day conference will see food experts from the international and
ASEAN community gather at the Rizqun International Hotel to discuss
topics under the theme “Food Science and Technology: Innovative
Approaches and Opportunities for Global Market”.
“Local
participants could learn a lot and there will be about 400 papers that
will come out from the three-day conference,” she said.
Some of
the topics that will be discussed include post harvesting, nutrition
and health, food standards and regulations, alternative ingredients,
food service and entrepreneurship, food chemistry, microbiology and
analysis, sensory evaluation, food processing and product development,
food engineering and mechanisation, halal foods, food safety and
policies, functional food and food biotechnology, risk assessment
strategies, sanitation and decontamination issues in food industry and
food marketing and distribution.
“The ASEAN Food Conference has,
since its inception, developed into an important regional forum for
food scientists, technologists, engineers and industry managers and
executives as well as government personnel and students in the field of
food science and technology,” said a statement from the organisers.
The
conference is organised by the ASEAN Committee on Science and
Technology and the Federation of Institutes of Food Science and
Technology, supported by the Ministry of Development, Department of
Agriculture, Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources, Brunei
Darussalam Association of Food Science and Technology and Universiti
Brunei Darussalam.
