Modest Share of Islamic Countries in Halal Products Turnover

Representative of the Council of the International Center for Development of Halal Products said: “currently, halal food market has a turnover of 600 million dollars and non-food products market has a 3 billion dollar turnover; however, the question is ‘which countries or individuals provide halal products and benefit from them”?

According to the news headquarters of the first halal products conference, Seyyed Assad Sajjad pointed to halal market as a big economic opportunity and said: “currently, many people in the world use or want to use halal products”.

He said: “India, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, and the U.S. produce more than 80 percent of halal products while share of countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt is too small; halal products are mainly produced in non-Muslim countries”.

Mentioning some foreign brands in non-Muslim countries such as KFC, McDonald, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and some cosmetic and pharmaceutical brands, Representative of the Council of the International Center for Development of Halal Products said that the reason for Muslim countries’ inactivity in the area of halal products is lack of education and awareness; he said: “we still do not know what to do in this regard and how to do it”.

Seyyed Assad Sajjad mentioned the Cristina brand which uses pork (a prohibited meat) to make 180 products.

He insisted that halal products should be tested, verified and documented.

He also pointed out that halal has turned into an international brand so much so that some people use this brand to sell more of their products.

In the end, Seyyed Assad Sajjad noted that the aim of this conference was to raise people’s awareness regarding branding, standardization, validation and consultation methods for halal products and said: “the next halal products conference will be held in the Philippines in January 2018”.

The conference was held on December 13^th and 14^th, 2017 in Borj Sefid of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. The conference themes included criteria for halal food, similarities and differences in religions with respect to criteria for halal food, the criteria for meat products to be halal, principles of Fiqh related to halal products, tahara and nijasa in halal products and new problems in halal products.