As Halal market grows, greater regulation needed

QX179R SG

As Halal market grows, greater regulation needed: Consultant

With the growing demand for halal certified food and products, at least one halal business consultant feels there may be a need for greater regulation too.

Currently, such consultants are unaccredited and it's unclear how many of them exist and are well-equipped to advise the laymen on the criteria for obtaining halal certification.

With a halal certificate, a company can travel to majority Muslim countries worldwide, where the halal market is estimated to be worth some 2.1 trillion US dollars.

This explains why more companies here are getting themselves halal certified, from only 500 in the year 2000, to 2,300 last year.

As retail companies go halal, suppliers down the value chain will also see the need to do so, representing another growth market for halal business consultants like Ustaz Azmi bin Abdul Samad.

He's the CEO of four-year-old Halal Hub Business management - the consultancy arm of Al-Qiblah International Consultants.

He's also a former halal inspection officer with MUIS or the Religious Islamic Council of Singapore.

"To obtain halal certification, establishments don't need any consultant. However, being laymen they may not understand certain halal criteria and Islamic requirements. It's not only no pork no lard, all food an drinks, their sources, everything must not contain elements that's nonhalal in Islam. Apart from that, MUIS also have certain other criteria in ascertaining the halal status throughout the halal certification period."

Newspaper reports of NTUC FairPrice's recent engagement of halal consultant Pergas Halbiz to audit their products caused some confusion for people like Western food chain Pastamania's CEO Rashid Hassan.

"We've always acknowledged MUIS to be the authorizing body for all halal certification so news about Pergas doing certification comes as bit of surprise to us. I think this is a new avenue they're trying to penetrate I'm not sure what's the overall objective is maybe both bodies would like to clarify."

At a recent halal seminar, President of MUIS or the Religious Islamic Council of Singapore, Alami Musa, clarified that MUIS is the sole authorizing body for halal certificates.

Yesterday, Pergas Halbiz issued a one-page news release saying it's fully aware of MUIS' role and that Pergas' services extend only as far as helping FairPrice attain halal certification and complying with the criteria.

Going forward, Ustaz Azmi thinks MUIS should accredit and make public a list of such consultants and even meet with them regularly.

"That should be the way so that we can ensure that certain standards are being met because we do have cases where individuals do it on a freelance basis which may compromise certain standards."

Accreditation could provide greater assurance for companies like the iEcon chain of minimarts which sell halal products.

Mr Richard Seah, who oversees the marketing and distribution aspects, say they currently rely on their manufacturers to satisfy the halal requirements.

MUIS President Alami Musa says they're studying the feasibility of an accreditation scheme for consultants.

--938Live