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Monday 25 February 2013

No horseplay from IKEA Turkey on halal meat


ISTANBUL/ STOCKHOLM

IKEA Turkey has confirmed that all of its meat products are made of 100 percent veal with halal certification, after inspectors discovered that meatballs served in IKEA’s stores in the Czech Republic contained horsemeat.

The Swedish furniture giant was drawn into Europe’s widening food labeling scandal today after the Czech State Veterinary Administration declared that horse meat had been found in one-kilogram packs of frozen meatballs made in Sweden and shipped for sale in Czech IKEA stores. A total of 760 kilograms of the meatballs were prevented from reaching the shelves, according to The Associated Press.

IKEA spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson said meatballs from the same batch had gone out to Slovakia, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Greece, Greek Cyprus and Ireland.

Halal certificate

Magnusson said meatballs from that batch were taken off the shelves in IKEA stores in all those countries, and confirmed that other shipments of meatballs were not affected. IKEA Turkey told the Hürriyet Daily News today that products such as meatballs and sausages were 100 percent veal, supplied by local producers. The company’s Turkey group also declared that all these products were supplied by the local P?nar Et Company, which produces halal food, in compliance with Islamic standards. The recent news items about IKEA’s European stores have nothing to do with IKEA Turkey, representatives said.

The horse meat scandal began in Ireland in mid-January, when the country announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. Similar discoveries then spread like wildfire across Europe as governments, supermarkets, meat traders and processors began their own DNA testing of products labeled beef and were forced to withdraw tens of millions of products from store shelves.

European Union officials are meeting today to discuss tougher food labeling rules. Some EU member states are pressing for tougher labeling rules to regain consumer confidence. The 27-nation bloc must agree on binding origin disclosures for food product ingredients, starting with a better labeling of meat products, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner said.

World Halal Food Council Europe arrives in Italy


(ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 25 – The World Halal Food Council Europe, which groups top experts on foods Muslims are allowed to eat, will meet for the first time in Italy and is scheduled to gather in Milan on March 1-2.

The meeting, organized by the local chapter of the Halal International Authority, HIA, charged with certifying which products and cooking procedures are halal, licit under Islam, will meet at the Sheraton Malpensa Hotel. Promoters say experts will discuss common rules of certification, the sector’s challenges and the opportunities for the halal market in Europe.

Among participants, the local section of the HIA said in a statement’, will be ‘the representatives of all the agencies making up the World Halal Food Council in Europe: HIA, Halal Quality Control, Halal Food Council Europe, Halal Institute of Spain, European Institute of Halal, Halal Control, The Grand Mosque of Paris, Halal Certification Services, Total Quality Halal Correct, The Muslim Religious Union of Poland and The Muslim Food Board’.

Consumers of halal products are over two billion worldwide, with an estimated 35 million in Europe however organizers of the event said ‘certifications are granted in an unclear way by organizations which are not recognized internationally and have unclear origins’.

The World Halal Food Council was created in Indonesia in 1999 ‘to consolidate the brotherhood and cooperation among certification agencies worldwide’.

———

The 2013 edition of the World Halal Food Council (WHFC) of Europe will be held in Italy. The Halal International Authority (HIA) will host the meeting at the city of Milan, the capital par excellence of the Italian economy. On 2nd March, 2013 at the Sheraton Malpensa Hotel, WHFC Members together with important leaders, observers and experts in the Halal field from around the world will be there. This annual meeting of WHFC Europe will be a special opportunity as it will discuss important issues related to Halal certification common rules, struggles to cope with and opportunities to develop in European Halal market.

Opinion: Chance for Halal Industry to raise the bar


by Rushdi Siddiqui & Tina Jamaluddin

Breaking News: “Nestle removes beef pasta meals after finding horsemeat; Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, has removed beef pasta meals from shelves in Italy and Spain after tests revealed traces of horse DNA.” — BBC News on Feb 19, 2013.

The Chinese new year of the Snake, seems to have become the year of Horse (meat). The year, 2013, did not start on a positive note for meat loving consumers in Europe with the mid-January announcement about Irish food inspectors finding horsemeat in some beef burgers heading for the UK supermarket chains.

This was followed almost immediately by announcement from the UK, Sweden and France that up to 100% horsemeat was found in several brands of frozen food.

In tracing the origins of the abattoirs responsible for contaminating the supply chain, it leads investigators across France to Cyprus to Netherlands to Romania and Luxembourg. The concern was the contamination seemed not to be accidental, but, rather the work of criminal conspiracy.

The world’s largest food manufacturer, Nestle, with a large imprint in the halal market, admitted that two of their beef products produced out of their factory in Italy and Spain contained more than 1% horse DNA. Furthermore, the possible source of contaminant was a supplier in Germany, a sub-contractor owned by JBS, the world’s largest meat processing company.

How does this affect consumer confidence in accepting the authenticity and integrity of the attached label?

Now, the entire supply chain, from the proverbial “farm to fork” is somewhat compromised, possibly not from a food safety perspective, but from an ethical and business standpoint. Nestle and JBS are listed No 1 and No 6, respectively, on the list of world’s largest food companies (by sales), and for all their food safety systems and standards, they still find themselves embroiled in this unfolding scandal.

The food retailers across Europe, with PR machinery in place, have firmly distanced themselves from the actions of their guilty suppliers, and have been adamant that they were as shocked as their customers by the discovery. Furthermore, the EU health ministers were quick to point out that while mislabeling is ethically questionable, the horsemeat contamination is not a food safety or public health issue, even though the equine drug Phenylbutazone, or bute, used on horses is not allowed to enter the food chain as it could pose a health risk in humans.

This leads back to the bigger question: how confident are we, as food consumers that we have not been exposed? Where does the “buck of responsibility stop?” The fingers are pointing to those making the larger profit margins, major food retailers have to bear some of the responsibility. Furthermore, it would appear they are constantly squeezing the supply manufacturers to produce cheap products while improving their own bottom line.

While eating horsemeat may be considered taboo or even unethical or unsavory in some parts of the world, Muslims are not prohibited from eating horse and camel if the animal is slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic practices. However, the worry for Muslim consumers, who readily eat non-certified halal meat products with the justification that “as long as it’s not pork”, is that during the same testing process, food inspectors have also discovered minute traces of pork DNA in some beef frozen foods.

For example, Waitrose’s brand of British meatballs showed they contained some pork. Even some Halal meat pies produced in the UK were found to have traces of porcine DNA. The word distressing is an understatement for Muslims relying on truth in labeling by the name brand companies!

The potential fallout could be massive and will shift the mindset of Muslim consumers worldwide who already face challenges of finding halal food products on supermarket shelves. While the contamination of pork DNA in meat products might not be deliberate, traces of pork DNA may be the result of ultra sensitive DNA testing, which can detect traces at minute levels and will be evident in factories that also produce pork-based products or get their raw materials from abattoirs that slaughter pigs.

The implications of such a scenario are crap shoot “roll the dice” (willing to chance it) versus capital equipment expenditure. Thus, going forward, this means that non-halal manufacturers, who produce halal products, will either have to have dedicated factories for halal products or they might consider dropping the product altogether.

Today, not one halal company controls the entire supply food chain. It is well-known and accepted that supply chains are long, challenging and complicated. Thus, given the scare of cross contamination and food safety issues, it is imperative that halal institutions and food manufacturers take up the challenge and convey to the public at large that their supply chains encompass the essence of halal.

There are two very important halal lessons to be learned from Islamic finance on (1) what not to do and (2) what to do during external financial shocks.

In both niche markets, Islamic finance as a subset of social-ethical movement (a subset set of conventional finance) and halal food as a subset of the “food industry” (although halal includes pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, logistics, etc), a “call to action” plan explaining the merits and value proposition is urgently required to address the external turbulence.

For the halal industry, the horsemeat fiasco is about the “trust and confidence” of the food supply chain being compromised. It is here that the halal industry can show the transparency and accountability of the food supply chain from “farm to fork.”

The halal industry has the opportunity to raise the transparency bar for not only itself, but, more importantly, for its conventional brethren.

Rushdi Siddiqui is global head, Islamic finance and OIC countries, Thomson Reuters and Tina Jamaluddin is ex-head of business and product development of PrimaBaguz Sdh Bhd.

Sunday 24 February 2013

Opinion: Lessons from hiking for Islamic finance


Rushdi believes that a change agent must tell the truth
to a benevolent dictator, religious hardliner,
and compassionately connect with youth and have nots.
The Malaysian Insider

FEB 18 — In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. — Henry Miller

Of all the sports I play — basketball, tennis, football, biking, running and hiking — hiking provides a number of lessons for Islamic finance and the halal industry.

The metaphor is applicable to many economic sectors, industries and companies, but more so in these two inter-related yet mutually ignored movements.

A misstep can be game over for a hiker, as a misstep can be disaster for an Islamic bank. The public trust and confidence, DNA on the balance sheet, are the foundations of Islamic or halal.

It starts out with one’s medical examination and appropriate equipment; one has to be/become “fit” to climb, otherwise have the ambulance on speed dial.

You and I may not have the stamina of a trekking Sherpa in Nepal, but hiring a professional trainer, and time and miles on a treadmill on incline, stepper and elliptical will do the trick.

Is the Islamic bank public ready? Who is on the shariah board? Is it appropriately capitalised, qualified human assets in place, vetted marketing materials, public inter-facing staff properly trained, strategy, tactics and execution in place with timelines and refinement feedback, customer service sharp and responsive, etc., as unexpected challenges will rise internally/externally.

Finally, what is the background of the CEO and is there confidence by the senior leadership team (SLT) and rank and file, as his vision must ultimately be executed with driven motivation.

First step out

One must start out with a hill before embarking on a mountain. For example, it makes sense to practise climbing the nearly 300 hills in Malaysia before embarking on Kilimanjaro (Kenya), K-2 (Pakistan), Mt Olympia (the US) or Mt Everest.

Most (serious) hikers aim to climb the highest peak in their country first. The initial success builds confidence and motivation to do a few more runs with, say, weighted vests, and then move forward to the next climb-cum-summit.

It’s not advisable to listen to music while hiking, as the hearing sense picks up what the eye misses due to dense foliage, fog, darkness, animals, focus on terrain, etc.

Similarily, the Islamic bank cannot put on blinkers as it will miss opportunities and will not be able to react to a (reacting) competitor. Thus, the body and the bank need to have all the senses available for optimal operations.

For a bank, a province of a country (location) is the lower hanging fruit, otherwise resources are spread thinly and depleted fast with exit results.

When a retail Islamic bank closes shop, it provides a greater chill, a run on deposits, in the marketplace than a conventional counterpart (sized) bank closure.

Studies typically suggest targeting the margin yielding bankable in major cities, KL or Jakarta, before embarking on outer regions. For example, Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi and Kuwait’s Kuwait Finance House established a beach-head presence initially in Kuala Lumpur. Yes, it’s crowded and competitive, but better than sparse and secluded, as cost of customer acquisition requires a longer break-even time frame.

(Islamic banks today are a national phenomenon as a sprinkling of branches in another country is, by definition, not international. The foreign operations may be for trade finance funding and corporate banking for company operations from the home country.)

Right equipment

Next, the right equipment is a must, as jogging sneakers, shorts, T-shirts and water bottle work well in a gym or around the KLCC park but will be inadequate if the hiker attempts to climb from the base to a few hundred metres with such ware. Thus, climbing boots, dri-fit shirts, trail mix and food in a backpack, climbing pole, ropes, etc, are the necessary tools for success.

It is an immense challenge for a new bank to enter into an already crowded space of dedicated Islamic banks, windows and subsidiaries, and consumer finance companies. Additionally, the success formula in conventional banking, be it marketing, PR, staff training, and even the CEO, does not translate well into the Islamic finance space, as the question “what’s the difference” has to be answered.

Some of the questions requiring answers include: has the bank identified, via primary studies, target customer segmentation, product differentiation and price competitiveness, PR and marketing including premiums, etc. Thus, the offering must overcome (1) approach of what worked for others will work for us and (2) “me too” perception by the market place.

A hiker will initially take an established (worn out) path, and will not follow the foot imprints deviating from the path. An Islamic bank needs to fit in (shariah adherence — “path to the watering hole”) and stand out (pricing, products, customer service, etc.). As every hiker is different, so is every Islamic bank.

The ascend

Now that we are “fit for purpose” ready, the decision of which trail — beginners to advanced — corresponds to training and equipment, and, for a bank, where should the first branch be located, maybe within headquarters?

As the climb begins, the external environment is not predictable as the hiker has to deal with different terrain, varying steepness, low hanging tree branches (at lower altitude), rock outcropping, water flow, mud, creepy crawlies, weather, etc. After a period of time, few weeks, the same climb eventually becomes more efficient, hence, better timing and pacing, supply carrying and reading the environment.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremonies are over, red carpet rolled up, and VIPs and media have left, now the job starts of attracting depositors, investors, corporate, selling cards, etc. The people/corporate, much like the terrain, vary in needs and demands. The challenges will come from both within i.e. cards not working, delays in approvals, customer service not efficient, etc., and without, competition.

Competition may send mystery clients to check out the new bank, they may under-price offerings, they may subtly question the compliance of offerings in the marketplace, etc.

After a passage of time, the growing pains become less and a routine develops with the bank and customers. There may be a “blow-up”, product’s shariah authenticity questioned in market place, much like a climber stumbling and injuring or twisting an ankle, and, in both cases, damage control (shariah advisory board comment to updated medical kit) needs to be in place.

The first view

After the compass or measurement shows an achievement of, say, 50 per cent on the first climb, the climber will look back and marvel with a sense of accomplishment, but will also look upwards and examine how much more until the summit. The benchmark on the trail to the summit, be it a tree, rock, etc., becomes faster and easier to achieve over time.

The bank branch will have a dashboard of key performance indicators, KPI, concerning deposits, loans, cards, non-performing loans, concentration risk, treasury placement profits, etc, over time intervals. The bandwidth of volatility will narrow over time as products get added/removed, refinement of marketing mix, etc.

Thus, the time to close leads narrows, threatened customers are retained without price compression, staff turnover reduced, back-office bugs reduced, etc. The bottom line is the first set of actual numbers (“how much/far” we have trekked) and becomes the benchmark to improve upon over time.

By the way, the climber will use a stick to climb and meet people on the way up and down. They will give advice on terrain conditions, different trails to take, and heeding such advice results in better climbs. Similarly, the bank will get advice from consultants, feedback from customer service and suggestion boxes for more efficient operations.

Summit

The view from the top is magnificent and different on each climb, depending on the time of day. The success builds the confidence to seek a more difficult mountain to hike. If the hiker happens to enter contests and wins the gold medal, he/she will impose self-pressure to repeat, then “three-peat”, and so on.

The magical one-year anniversary implies that the bank not only survived, but met KPIs, hence, a sense of achievement in a competitive and crowded market. It builds the foundation for opening another branch, and so on. If the bank wins an award, the CEO will be under pressure to replicate performance.

Finally, the climb down is equally challenging as one has to pace oneself, footing has to be exact or else you can blow a knee, etc. Once the bank (branch) has meet the KPIs, the two biggest challenges are complacency and inability to continually reinvent as competition is dynamic.

Conclusion

The lesson for Islamic finance from hiking is “previous preparation prevents poor performance”, and “continued commitment confuses complacency”.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

UK: Birmingham school says sorry for serving non-Halal meat to Muslim pupils


Moseley head teacher writes to parents explaining error after investigation at city council catering department

The parent, whose son is now on packed lunches, added: “We don’t know what was actually served. Non-Halal is a very ambiguous term.

“They have not explained what it means but we doubt we are going to get answers.”

An inquiry was launched on December 18 by the city council after concerns wereraised by the school.

Council department Direct Services, which provides the meals for city schools, commissioned an investigation.

Shelia Walker, Head of Direct Services, wrote to Mr Jansen last month to confirm the mistake.

A head teacher has apologised to parents after admitting his Birmingham school served non-Halal food to Muslim pupils.

A member of staff at Moseley School, in Wake Green Road, has been removed from their post following an investigation into the ‘unintentional error’.

Council catering staff had wrongly dished up the non-Halal food to Muslim pupils on December 12, but details have only just come to light.

On Monday parents received a letter from Craig Jansen, head of the 1,400-pupil secondary school and sixth form, in which he apologised unreservedly for the incident.

The controversy comes as the country is still in the grip of the horse meat scandal, which last week saw Staffordshire County Council withdrawing beef from its school menus as a precaution.

One furious Muslim parent, whose son attends Moseley School, said of the Halal error: “I was shocked – they have failed the children.

‘‘How did this meal get into the school system to be fed to the children?

“It’s just shocking that dietary requirements haven’t been met.”

Halal foods should not include pork or pork by-products, animals that were dead prior to slaughtering, blood or blood by-products or birds of prey.

She added: “This was found to be due to an error and was unintentional, nevertheless, Direct Services has failed to ensure the integrity of Halal-only food at Moseley School.”

The report went on to say that a disciplinary hearing took place on February 11 and a member of staff had been removed from the school.

Ms Walker said Direct Services catering staff would be fully retrained and signs would be displayed to indicate Halal food.

A robust procedure and double checking system would also be implemented for the ordering of Halal function/special events within the school, according to the findings.

The council’s Direct Services is also planning an open afternoon at the school at which staff and suppliers will be present to answer any questions from parents, who can also sample food products.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson told the Mail: “We of course apologise for any concerns this has caused.

‘‘We do have robust procedures in place and the caterer successfully provides thousands of meals daily to schools.

Sri Lanka Muslims try to diffuse halal meat row


24th February

consensus reached at Buddhist-Islamic religious leaders meeting

Giving a new twist to the Halal controversy, the All Ceylon JammiyyathulUlama (ACJU) has now expressed willingness to handover Halal certification to the government if problem persists. The decision came after members of the Muslim community and ACJU representatives met the Chief Prelate of the Malwatta Chapter, Ven. Tibbatuwawe Sri SumangalaThera yesterday.

According to members who took part at the meeting, the Chief Prelate called upon the members to remain calm and to preserve this long standing friendship between the two communities. “He referred to the Halal issue citing that an amicable agreement could be reached easily through dialog”.

“The ACJU is willing to co-operate with the Parliamentary sub-committee appointed to look into the issue but however feel that the issue of Halaal certificate is blown out of proportion,” the member said. “Due to the many problems that have arisen, the certification could be handed over to the SLS or the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Those present at the meeting representing the Muslim community were members of the Sri Lanka Muslim Council, Former Ambassador to Iran M.S. Juhair, Dr. M.A Shukrir, Director of Jamianeenya College, Beruwala, ShiblyAzeef, Former Attorney General, Ikram Mohammed (PC), SaadiWadood  Attorney-at- Law, Moulavi H.L.M Ibrahim a lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, MoulaviFazlurRahman, President of the Kandy ACJU and member of the Muslim Media Forum A.M.M. Ameen.

Earlier, the Lanka Jamiyyathul Ulama remained polarized over the issuance of the halal certification and alleged that the ACJU had erred on their part. “We do not wish to comment on the matter as we’ve been cooperative with the government and still render our support to come to a conclusion over the matter,” said AslamZubair, the media coordinator for the ACJU.

The ACJU clarifying matters with relation to the Halal certification cited that the ACJU does not compel any company to obtain their certificate nor do they charge hefty fees for the procedure.
Consultant Shaikh Fazil Farook added that all their accounts have been submitted to the National Investigation Bureau and have always conducted their affairs in a transparent manner.

21 February

COLOMBO: Islamic clerics in Sri Lanka tried to calm mounting religious tensions in the majority Buddhist nation Thursday by telling stores not to sell halal-slaughtered meat to non-Muslims.

Food manufacturers have been labelling all their products “halal” for convenience, meaning until now non-Muslims have not had any choice in the matter.

Buddhist hardliners argue they should not be forced to consume food that is prepared according to Islamic religious rites. They say the halal certificate represents the “undue influence” of Muslims and is an “affront” to non-Muslims.

The halal method of killing an animal requires it to have its throat slit.

The clerics’ move to diffuse tensions came after thousands of nationalist Buddhists staged a rally last weekend to demand that all shops in the country clear their stocks of halal food by April.

Nationalist Buddhist monks and their supporters also launched a campaign to boycott halal-slaughtered meat as well as other products which carry a halal certificate.

Muslim clerics said the boycott organised by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Force, has created tensions that could erupt into full-blown violence in a country recovering from decades of ethnic war.

And the the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), Sri Lanka’s main body of Islamic clergy, which issues the halal certificates, Thursday asked retailers to ensure certified products were offered only to Muslims.

“We want to promote peaceful co-existence and harmony,” ACJU president Mufti Rizwe told reporters in Colombo.

President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is also a Buddhist, urged monks not to incite religious hatred and violence amid reports of a wave of attacks and intimidation targeting Muslim businesses.

The Buddhist Force has disassociated itself from the violence, saying there are “duplicate groups” pretending to be them and stirring up trouble.

Sri Lanka’s ethnic civil war claimed at least 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009, when Tamil rebels were crushed in a major military offensive.

Less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million is Muslim.

The Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) Seeks Sole Rule on Halal Certification


The Indonesia Ulema Council (MUI) says it should be the only authority for halal certification in order to avoid competition among Islam-based interest groups.

“Lawmakers should not open up opportunities for dissent among Muslims,” MUI Chairman for Fatwa Ma’ruf Amin said last week.

Ma’ruf said the MUI had had 24 years of experience as a reliable halal certification agency and that its standards were recognized worldwide.

Ma’ruf said he was not against the existence of other organizations formed by religious communities, such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). However, he said, the MUI should be the only institution allowed to issue certificates.

Misbahul Munir Kholil of NU said that it would continue to operate its halal certification unit that was established in 2011. He was not worried about disagreements between one agency and another, saying that the public should be “allowed to have options.”

Hasrul Azwar, Member of the Working Committee of Halal Product Warranty from the United Development Party, said any religious society organizations should be allowed to establish their own certification agency as long as their laboratory and methods were approved by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Muslims regularly consuming Haram without knowing: expert


Halal Logos
By: Gillian Duncan
Christien Meindertsma, an artist based in the Netherlands, once set about tracing all of the products made using the parts of one animal.
Three years later, in 2009, she published a book called Pig 05049 that proved pieces of one pig, the 05049 of the title, ended up in 185 separate products, from toothpaste to dough improver and desserts. The pig is an animal considered haram, or not to be consumed, by Muslims.
Industry specialists say Meindertsma’s book offers a lesson for everyone about how the processing of products has changed in the globalised world – and why it is important to know what is in the food we eat and items we use.
Halal, which means permissible, not only covers food and drink, but anything that can be used in daily life, including drugs and cosmetics.
The size of the halal industry globally is enormous – worth an estimated US$2.1 trillion (Dh7.71tn) annually and growing.
Yet the UAE’s industry is tiny in comparison, at just $550 million. However, it has a proportionally bigger share of halal trade, which was estimated to be $3.6 billion in 2010 and projected to grow to $8.4bn in 2020.
Initially, halal referred to meat that had been slaughtered according to Islamic law, by a Muslim saying a prayer. It then expanded to cover ready-to-eat food containing meat and, finally, all other products.
However, awareness about what is halal is lacking in some parts, according to Asad Sajjad, the chief executive and secretary general of the Halal Development Council and the founder and director of the International Halal Federation.
Mohammed Jinna, the chief executive of Halal India, says halal should cover everything.
“Your toothpaste and your soap and your creams and your lipsticks – everything should be halal.”
But even food one might expect to be halal by its nature is not necessarily permitted.
Take sugar, for example, a plant-based product that is processed using bone char, charcoal made from animal bones – usually from cattle or pigs. If it is the latter, the end product will not be halal.
And even meat that is permitted, such as chicken, is sometimes not halal. In some big industrial chicken plants, the birds are fed proteins and injected with water to make them gain weight.
“The protein is used so that water retains in the body. Otherwise it will just drain out. The protein is made of pig,” says Mr Sajjad.
In the Emirates, there are a handful of big halal food producers, such as Emirates Poultry and Al Islami. But the largest halal food producers are based in the West.
Take Nestlé, headquartered in Switzerland. It is not only the world’s biggest food company – it is also the world’s largest halal food maker.
In fact, 85 per cent of the products in the $2.1tn halal market – which makes up 20 per cent of the total global food industry – are produced in Brazil, the United States, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, Holland and New Zealand, says Mr Sajjad.
“These are the countries in the West. In the East, the biggest halal producer is Thailand,” which is not even a Muslim country, he points out.
In fact, the only Muslim countries that produce halal food in any significant quantities are Indonesia and Malaysia.
“I have been to Asia and the Middle East and I try to convince them to compete in the non-Muslim countries, and they say, ‘we can’t compete because the quality is not there,’” says Farhan Tufail, the chief executive of Halal Certification Services, based in Switzerland.
But, he adds, some foreign companies, such as Nestlé, are investing heavily in halal production in Muslim countries and for a simple reason: the halal market is booming and the companies want to be prepared. They can buy the ingredients to produce halal food cheaper in the Middle East than in the West.
But industry specialists say awareness about halal in the UAE and the region is not as widespread as some might expect.
“Here, if you go to any store in the UAE and ask, ‘Do you have halal biscuits? Do you have halal confectionery?’ they don’t know. The people selling food have no awareness. The buyers have no awareness,” says Mr Sajjad.
But that is changing.
The UAE has in recent months sought to boost its influence in the halal food industry and was appointed late last year to chair the Halal Food Technical committee designed to set standards for the industry worldwide.
The Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology is now working on guidelines to unify standards for halal food and cosmetics, which are expected to be applied in 57 Islamic countries in the next three years.
Despite the current furore over horse meat labelled as beef in Europe, a certification system is key to boosting consumer confidence in halal products, say the experts.
“You can find a lot of sugar being certified in Singapore and Malaysia. There is a lot of awareness in these countries,” says Mr Jinna.
Regulations for halal certification bodies in the UAE are being drawn up and are expected to be issued in the next six months.
They will be compulsory for any organisation wanting to become a halal certification body.
If they comply with the rules they will be accredited.
Only with the implementation of a comprehensive certification system will people be sure about whether the products they are using and consuming are halal.

Halal food certification worries UK Muslims


Halal food certification worries UK Muslims
By: OnIslam & News Agencies
LANCASHIRE – Following recent fiasco surrounding pork traces found in halal food, the relation between Lancashire Council of Mosques and the city council has come to a deadlock after raising concerns about the certification of halal food supplied to schools.
“The Muslim community of Lancashire is utterly shocked that the supplier of pork contaminated products is certified by the Halal Food Authority,” the statement issued by Lancashire Council of Mosques was cited by The Asian Image website on Thursday, February 8.
“We urge communities and schools across Lancashire to boycott HFA-accredited products until further investigation.”
The stalemate started three months ago when the organization urged parents not to allow their children to eat school meals provided by Lancashire County Council which contain meat.
The warning came because of concerns over whether halal products were properly accredited by the authorities approved by the council.
The problem aggravated after traces of pork were found in food deliveries to prisons by a local halal meat supplier.
The incident was made public after a spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency said the halal meat supplied to prisons involved traces of pork.
The discovery comes after horsemeat was found in beefburgers stocked by major British supermarket chains, with one brand of burger coming in at 29 percent horse.
Muslims do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat filthy and unhealthy to eat.
After the finding the Lancashire Council of Mosques called for an investigation into the halal food industry.
Deadlock
Despite halal food scandal, Lancashire County Council rejected the mosques’ request, stating it will continue to provide meat supplied by the HFA, one of three halal accreditation agencies.
“The only products we purchase through the HFA are halal chicken products which come from a supplier which only processes chickens on site, so we have no concerns about cross-contamination with pork,” Roger Eakhurst, assistant director of Lancashire county commercial services, said.
Geoff Driver, leader of Lancashire County Council, agreed.
“I am disappointed that the Lancashire Council of Mosques is asking parents not to allow their children to have halal meals provided in our school kitchens,” he said.
“I am prepared to discuss this, but the council of mosques must recognize that the council will not provide meat from animals that were not stunned before slaughter.”
The Muslim authority, however, said it felt vindicated about its previous concerns and may yet warn parents away from all school meals.
“We only trust meat certified by the Halal Food Committee,” Moulana Hanif, a member of the council’s halal sub-committee, said.
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority, estimated at nearly 2.5 million.
The concept of halal, — meaning permissible in Arabic — has traditionally been applied to food.
Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.

Who should regulate kosher and halal food?


Halal meat / Source: www.theepochtimes.com
By: economist.com
SourceThe Economist
KEEPING the government’s nose out of anything with a religious whiff is one of America’s founding principles. With this in mind on January 31st a federal district judge in Minnesota dismissed a lawsuit contending that Hebrew National, a big American meat-products brand, fraudulently labelled its hot dogs “100% kosher”. Critics had claimed that the meat used did not meet kosher requirements. The judge, however, ruled that since kosher is a standard “intrinsically religious in nature”, under the first amendment it was none of the court’s business. Triangle K, the certifying body that gave the wieners the kosher seal of approval, and its Orthodox rabbis, would have to rebut the critics themselves. Unhappy customers could always shop elsewhere.
Few Western countries have laws explicitly regulating kosher or halal products—chiefly meat produced by the ritual slaughter of animals, subject to particular standards of health or hygiene. Governments prefer to rely on private companies and market forces to do the job. If people find out certified items are not as pure as they claim to be, they stop buying them. When governments do get involved it is usually under the auspices of consumer protection or food safety. They have been wary of wading in on specifically religious grounds. But with Muslim populations swelling throughout Europe and the business of religiously approved goods booming, the question of how to regulate such products is becoming more urgent.
America has been battling with this issue for decades. Of its 50 states, 22 have introduced kosher-fraud laws over the past century. Anxious about the industry’s rampant corruption (half of all “kosher” food was not), price-fixing and bitter rivalries (including drive-by shootings in poultry markets), New York started the trend in 1915 with a bill saying that food labelled fit for Jews must comply with “orthodox Hebrew religious requirements”. But in the past 20 years courts in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York have deemed such laws unconstitutional. New Jersey firms must merely produce documentary proof that their products are kosher.
Private certifiers have stepped into the breach. Five regulatory heavyweights (not including Triangle K) dominate the market, certifying products the world over. All the main kosher meat producers in America today adhere to the same stringent standard, “glatt kosher”, which includes especially careful examination of animals’ organs for any signs of illness that would render the meat unacceptable.
The only notable exception to this is Hebrew National, says Timothy Lytton of Albany Law School, who has written a book about kosher regulation (Hebrew National says it has “always stood by its kosher distinction and status” and a Triangle K rabbi says it made “kosher meat available to the greater American public, and not just the glatt consumer”.) The certifying bodies do a much better job than the government did, says Mr Lytton. They pounce on mistakes and are swift to admit their own. America’s kosher food industry generates $12 billion in sales a year so no one wants to lose customers because of sloppiness.
In Israel, by contrast, the state is closely involved, promoting the Chief Rabbinate’s kosher label as the only acceptable one. But those standards are the lowest common denominator, says Mr Lytton, and many religious Jews find them too lax. They insist on stricter checks from private companies which costs extra.
Still, Jews are more united than Muslims about the exact nature of their religion’s dietary rules. Jewish law leaves no doubt that stunning animals before slaughter is prohibited. Muslims disagree about that. Hundreds of halal-certification bodies operate, with varying standards and logos. They differ in their methods of slaughter. Some countries allow products containing a small percentage of non-halal ingredients to be classed as halal. Others do not. “Halal” pies and pasties recently served to Muslim prisoners in British jails turned out to contain traces of pork—but came from a supplier approved by the Halal Food Authority, one of two main British guarantors (it has now delisted the firm).
Tayyabs, a popular Punjabi curry house in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, Britain’s most Muslim area, does not even bother with certificates. The manager says that he knows and trusts his suppliers and his customers know and trust him.
That may work for a small, local restaurant but multinational firms cannot be so nonchalant. Last month McDonald’s and one of its franchises in Dearborn in south-east Michigan, which has the country’s highest concentration of Arab-Americans, paid $700,000 to settle allegations (which it denies) that it had falsely advertised its food as meeting Islamic dietary laws.
A worldwide standard for the $700 billion halal food market is one idea. Muslim countries, where governments see ruling on religious matters as part of their job, are keen to help. JAKIM, Malaysia’s department for Islamic development, takes responsibility for upholding halal standards. Misuse of the halal label can mean jail. The Sultanate of Brunei is proud of its mark, the Brunei Halal Brand. It wants to certify products around the world. That would help non-Muslim producers, such as Brazil, already one of the world’s largest exporters of halal meat, which are keen to expand in Muslim markets.
The importance of the halal label spreads well beyond food. Many of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims want reassurances that medicines and make-up, for example, are free from animal products or alcohol. Websites are abuzz with the news of a halal nail varnish produced in Poland. Just don’t test it on animals.

Pork found in “Halal” pies at UK prison


Bid To Protect Traditional Cornish Pasty
By: OnIslam & News Agencies
SourceOnIslam.net
LONDON – A supplier of halal meat in Britain has been suspending after traces of pork were found inside meat pies and pasties submitted to prison, sparking fury from Muslims.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable situation and one which we regret greatly,” Justice Minister Jeremy Wright told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Traces of pork were found in food deliveries to prisons by a local halal meat supplier.
Discovering the issue, Wright ordered all prisons to withdraw halal-labeled products immediately.
“Clearly this must be distressing for those affected and they can be reassured we are doing everything we can to resolve the situation,” he said.
“The Prison Service is investigating this as a matter of urgency.”
Muslims do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat filthy and unhealthy to eat.
The incident was made public after a spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency said the halal meat supplied to prisons involved traces of pork.
“The FSA has been informed that a number of meat pies and pasties supplied to UK prisons which were labeled and served as Halal contained traces of pork DNA,” she said.
“The local authority (where the supplier is based) is investigating how this contamination came about and whether these products have been distributed further across the UK.”
The discovery comes after horsemeat was found in beefburgers stocked by major British supermarket chains, with one brand of burger coming in at 29 percent horse.
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority, estimated at nearly 2.5 million.
The concept of halal, — meaning permissible in Arabic — has traditionally been applied to food.
Muslims should only eat meat from livestock slaughtered by a sharp knife from their necks, and the name of Allah, the Arabic word for God, must be mentioned.
Muslim Fury
The suspension of the halal food supplier won plaudits in Britain.
“This is not a matter of dietary preference but of Islamic law,” Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust campaign group, said.
“There are clear hospital and prison rules that halal meat must be on the menu.
“This lapse will have offended and distressed high numbers of Muslim prisoners and their families so apologizing, suspending the supplier and investigating the incident are the right steps for the MoJ to take,” she said.
The FSA spokeswoman echoes a similar message.
“People have a right to expect that the food they are eating is correctly described,” she said.
“We have called an urgent meeting of major retailers and suppliers on Monday to ensure that everyone is fully aware of their responsibilities.
“It is the responsibility of food businesses to ensure the food they sell contains what it says on the label.
“We are considering, with relevant local authorities, whether legal action is appropriate following the investigation,” she said.
The revelations, however, offended high number of Muslim prisoners and their families.
“This is very serious because no Muslim would ever eat pork meat – anything to do with pork,” Editor of the Muslim News, Ahmed Versi, told the BBC.
“It must be very distressing for those in prison who have been given this meat to realize they may have been eating food which was contaminated with pig.”

Fake halal imports anger China’s Muslims


CERTS_SAMPLE / Source: way2halal.com
Uyghurs say Chinese companies are passing goods off as halal products imported from Muslim countries.
The products with foreign labels marking them Islamic-compliant are popular among Uyghurs who distrust the certification by China’s state-run Islamic body, sources in Xinjiang said.
One company contacted by RFA Uyghur Service, Tianren International Ltd., admitted it had been producing food products domestically and mislabeling them as certified halal goods from Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country.
“Our company was set up a long time ago and has grown to a large scale. We mainly produce halal foods for the whole Xinjiang region and net hundreds of thousands to several million yuan [annually],” or hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars, said the company’s director, surnamed Luo.
“We label our foods as a Malaysian brand and mark them halal, but most of the halal foods we send to Xinjiang are produced in our factory,” she said.
“We have a large market in Xinjiang,” she said, referring to the region’s 9 million mostly Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uyghurs.
When asked if the company could run afoul of authorities and lose consumers in Xinjiang if it was discovered that it was falsely labeling its products, Luo responded, “It’s not a problem.”
In a follow-up call, Luo said that her company makes its food using halal ingredients, although she refused to provide details on how production was monitored.
An investigation of the address listed on a Tianren International product label for its office in Malaysia found a personal storage facility and not a food processing center.
Online forum
Tianren had been singled out on an online forum by Uyghurs as one of two companies said to be mislabeling products as coming from Muslim countries with exacting halal guidelines, when they were in fact being produced in China.
In messages on the Uyghur-language chat forum later deleted by Internet censors, the netizens said that they had been “cheated” by Tianren and an importer named Albert Lim, referring to them as “dishonest traders” that were retailing “fake halal foods.”
Officials at Albert Lim Imports could not be reached for comment, but the company’s address in Malaysia was found to be an auto garage.
Lack of trust
Sources within Xinjiang said that the number of food products that claim to be imported from abroad has increased recently and that such goods were in much higher demand than similar items known to be made in China.
They said that because China is not a Muslim country, Uyghurs distrust foods produced there, even when they are labeled as halal.
In China, halal foods, which play a significant role in Uyghur culture, are only produced in factories which have special permits from the government by the approval of the official Islamic Association.
Muslims are barred under their religion from consuming non-halal items such as pork, alcohol, blood, and the meat of animals that have not been slaughtered based on religious practices.
Non-food products, such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, are also are subject to halal standards.
Chinese companies importing “halal foods” from Muslim countries such as Malaysia are not vetted by the Islamic Association, and Uyghur sources said they would not trust the halal standards of the association even if they did.
There has also been a tendency for Uyghurs to boycott Chinese products following the July 2009 ethnic violence between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi that left nearly 200 people dead according to official reports.
Preferred goods
Sources in Xinjiang confirmed that food items believed to be halal and imported from abroad are more popular among Uyghurs, even when the ingredients labels are only in English.
One Uyghur youth said that one of the most sought-after products are imported energy drinks, particularly among the younger generation.
When asked where the energy drinks were imported from, the youth said he believed they were from “Malaysia and other Arabic countries.”
“Of course we are going to buy the ones made in Muslim countries, even if it is expensive, because it’s more credible [as a halal product],” he said.
“We bought the Chinese-made drinks before too, but not much,” he said.
“When they began to be imported from Muslim countries we preferred to buy it more.”
But a Uyghur businessman who acts as a middleman in Urumqi for a Chinese importer of energy drinks said he was surprised to learn that domestic companies were mislabeling their products as coming from Muslim countries.
“Did they really say that?” he asked after being informed that Tianren International had admitted to producing its food items at its factory in China.
He said that he was confident the products he purchased for resale in Urumqi were legitimately from Malaysia.
“The company I have contact with in China has a branch in Malaysia. [I know] because I … talked with them,” he said.
But he admitted that if he were to purchase halal products that were produced by Chinese companies “it would be cheaper” than importing them from Muslim countries.
“Imported halal foods are more expensive than those that are not imported,” he said.
Uyghur efforts
Even Uyghurs who do not strictly adhere to Muslim halal standards are often willing to pay a premium for foreign goods rather than give their money to Chinese companies, sources said.
They said that Chinese companies are merely cashing in on the Uyghur community by labeling their products as foreign and halal in an effort to draw in a larger market share.
But Uyghurs have been barred from the same market, they said.
Members on the online forum that complained about Tianren’s fake products expressed frustration that only a handful of Uyghur companies—such as importers Arman and Ihlas which are owned by Turkish Uyghurs—had been given permission by Chinese authorities to import food products from abroad.
Aside from demanding more Muslim-led companies in the region be allowed to source goods from abroad, Uyghurs have also called for tighter controls on “halal” products that are made in China.
But the Uyghur community has very little power to exercise consumer rights in China, Charles Burton, a senior consultant on Chinese affairs to agencies of the Canadian government, said.
“A lot of this has to do with bribery of food inspectors and corruption by the companies which are selling items that are not as they are described on the packaging,” he said.
The issue is often overlooked, he said, because Han Chinese “do not respect the religious rights of the Uyghur Muslims,” which is a byproduct of the Chinese government “oppressing Uyghur religious freedoms.”
“It is terrible for Muslims to buy food which they believe is halal, but actually is not,” Burton said.
“The sad thing is that Uyghurs have very little power and lack the connections to exert influence on behalf of their group,” he said.
“There are no nongovernmental organizations to supervise this kind of issue.”

McDonald’s settles legal case over false Halal products


United States – McDonald’s and one of its franchise owners agreed to pay $700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law.
McDonald’s and Finley’s Management Co. agreed Friday to the tentative settlement, with that money to be shared by Dearborn Heights resident Ahmed Ahmed, a Detroit health clinic, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn and lawyers.
Ahmed’s attorney, Kassem Dakhlallah, told The Associated Press on Monday that he’s “thrilled” with the preliminary deal that’s expected to be finalized March 1. McDonald’s and Finley’s Management deny any liability but say the settlement is in their best interests.
The lawsuit alleged that Ahmed bought a chicken sandwich in September 2011 at a Dearborn McDonald’s but found it wasn’t halal _ meaning it didn’t meet Islamic requirements for preparing food. Islam forbids consumption of pork, and God’s name must be invoked before an animal providing meat for consumption is slaughtered.
Dakhlallah said there are only two McDonald’s in the United States that sell halal products and both are in Dearborn, which has one of the nation’s largest Arab and Muslim communities. Overall, the Detroit area is home to about 150,000 Muslims of many different ethnicities.
The locations advertise that they exclusively sell halal Chicken McNuggets and McChicken sandwiches and they have to get those products from an approved halal provider, Dakhlallah said. He said there was no evidence of problems on the production side, but he alleges that the Dearborn location on Ford Road sold non-halal products when it ran out of halal.
Dakhlallah said he was approached by Ahmed, and they conducted an investigation. A letter sent to McDonald’s Corp. and Finley’s Management by Dakhlallah’s firm said Ahmed had “confirmed from a source familiar with the inventory” that the restaurant had sold non-halal food “on many occasions.”
After they received no response to the letter, Dakhlallah said, they filed a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court in November 2011 as part of a class action.
The Associated Press left messages Monday afternoon for attorneys representing the corporation and the franchise.
In the settlement notice, Finley’s Management said it “has a carefully designed system for preparing and serving halal such that halal chicken products are labeled, stored, refrigerated, and cooked in halal-only areas.” The company added it trains its employees on preparing halal food and “requires strict adherence to the process.”
He said although Ahmed believes McDonald’s was negligent, there was no evidence that the chain set out to deceive customers.
“McDonald’s from the very beginning stepped up and took this case very seriously,” Dakhlallah said. “They made it clear they wanted to resolve this. They got ahead of the problem.”
The lawsuit covers anyone who bought the halal-advertised products from the Ford Road restaurant and another Dearborn McDonald’s with a different owner between September 2005 and last Friday. Since that would be impossible to determine, Dakhlallah said both sides agreed to provide money to community-based charities that benefit members of this group.
The other location on Michigan Avenue wasn’t a defendant or a focus of the investigation, Dakhlallah said.
He said the final hearing will ultimately determine who gets what and how much, but roughly $275,000 is expected to go to the Huda Clinic, about $150,000 to the museum, $230,000 to attorneys and $20,000 to Ahmed.
Dakhlallah said he believes it’s the first lawsuit of its kind related to McDonald’s and halal food.
In 2002, McDonald’s agreed to donate $10 million to Hindu and other groups in the U.S. to settle lawsuits that accused the chain of mislabeling french fries and hash browns as vegetarian. The vegetable oil used to prepare the items had contained traces of beef for flavoring purposes.