RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Halal is an Arabic word that means lawful, allowed. More than that, it is a concept that permeates the food and the use of cosmetics and pharmaceutical products by Muslims worldwide. Under Sharia, the Islamic code of laws, followers of Mohammed’s faith can only consume products that fall into this category because God would permit them.
In Judaism, there is a similar category: kosher. One example is the prohibition of eating pork, ethyl alcohol, blood, and long-fanged animals, which are considered haram, in other words, not allowed. In a halal ritual, beef, chicken, goat, and sheep meat can be consumed, provided the slaughtering is done correctly.
The restriction is linked to the items themselves, as well as any product that contains these ingredients in its composition or has contact with them. A stamp used on meat, for example, cannot have glycerin or porcine origin.
As this is taken very seriously by Muslims, ensuring that the products consumed have been processed correctly is necessary. Therefore, companies interested in serving the Islamic consumer need to be certified.
“Today, 1.9 billion consumers in the world are Muslim. And the estimates for 2060 are that one in three people will be Muslim. So you have a huge market, a huge potential for business. Moreover, Muslim consumers are very loyal. Once they identify a certified brand, which brings a quality product, they end up being loyal to that brand”, explains Elaine Franco de Carvalho, quality coordinator of Fambras Halal, one of the leading halal certifiers in Brazil.
It’s a market concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa, and a few countries like Brazil. In Indonesia, for example, which has a significant Muslim population and is the biggest consumer market of halal food, certification is mandatory for exporters.
“Once the company is certified, it will attend some countries that it didn’t before, for having the halal certification as a requirement [to export] or for having the halal certification as a differential,” says Franco de Carvalho.
According to data from the latest Global State of the Islamic Economic Report, Brazil was the world’s largest exporter of halal food before the pandemic. In 2019, the country’s exports generated US$16.2 billion revenue, 12% more than the second place country, India, which traded US$4.4 billion.
CERTIFICATION
According to Franco de Carvalho, the certification process initially involves a documentary evaluation of the company. It verifies, for example, the ingredients and materials used in the manufacturing or processing of the product and its origin. “We need to guarantee that if that company uses keratin of animal origin, for example, that it comes from an animal that was slaughtered according to the Islamic ritual,” she says.
The certifier, then, sends an auditor with technical knowledge in the company’s area of activity (which can be a veterinarian, an agricultural engineer, among others) and religious authorities to verify that everything is done within the precepts of Islam.
In the case of bovine slaughter, for example, Elaine explains that everything must be done according to a ritual, which begins with the recitation of the words Bismillah, Allahu Akbar (“in the name of God, God is the greatest”) and ends with the draining of the animal’s blood for three minutes.
The knife must be sharp enough to sever the main arteries of the neck in a single cut and ensure instant death of the animal. “It is a requirement of halal slaughter that you minimize the animal’s suffering,” says Elaine.
The slaughter must be performed by a Muslim, but it can be performed by a Jew or a Christian if no one is available. The slaughter supervisor must be a follower of Islam.
Once approved, the company can receive a certification for all batches of its product, valid for three years, or receive certificates by groupings. About 450 Brazilian companies are certified only by Fambras Halal.
With products present in the Middle East since the 1970s, the Brazilian food producer BRF decided to take a step forward in 2014, with an eye on the vast halal market, by installing a factory in the United Arab Emirates. Located in the industrial zone of Abu Dhabi, the country’s capital, the plant processes mainly chicken products and also beef hamburgers.
It is the first Brazilian food industry to install a plant in the country and, if it depends on the Emirates government, it will not be the last. Last Sunday (3), the Minister of Climate Change and Environment of the Arabian nation, Mariam Almheiri, invited companies from Brazil to follow BRF’s example.
Her country provides advantages such as advanced transport infrastructure and proximity to the Arab and Asian consumer markets. According to BRF’s vice-president of International Market, Patrício Rohner, the halal market (products processed according to Islamic laws) represents today 25% of all the company’s sales and half of the sales abroad.
One of BRF’s brands, Sadia, is one of the leaders in its segment in the Arab Emirates. “When you see a market like Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, or Saudi Arabia, the brand recognition is greater than in Brazil,” Rohner said.
PRODUCTS FROM BRAZIL
After years of exporting processed products in Brazil, the decision to set up a plant in the Arab Emirates came after the realization that the foods produced in the Arab country could be closer to the palate of the region’s consumers.
“To develop products for the local taste, there is nothing better than being close to the consumer. When you try to find the ingredients that people have become accustomed to eating or have learned to eat from a young age, it is tough to do that from the outside,” Rohner explained.
The animals are raised and slaughtered in Brazil, where they receive halal certification. Only then is the meat exported to the United Arab Emirates, where it is processed (for example, made into nuggets, hamburgers, or tenderized and packaged).
According to Rohner, financially, it is more viable to raise animals in Brazil because the country has the structure to meet the domestic and international markets and abundant grain (for cattle feed) and water.
In addition to the plant in Abu Dhabi, BRF operates three other food processing units in the Middle East, one in Saudi Arabia and two in Turkey.
Other food companies do not yet have a plant in the Arab Emirates, but are present there, such as JBS, a competitor of BRF, which has a commercial office in the country, and Tropicool Açaí, a retail chain offering Amazon fruit products with stores in Dubai.
Source: Agencia Brazil
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