News From : DagangHalal.com (14 Jul 2010)
DAVAO CITY (PNA) – The market for “halal” products is so big that Davao and Mindanao businesses can make a good opportunity just by getting their products certified as halal.
“Halal is an Arabic term which can be loosely translated as something permissible or which can be consumed in Islam,” Muslim Mindanao Halal Certification Board, Inc. executive director Mariam Mohamad-Daud said.
According to Mohamad-Daud, when a product has been certified as halal, then it can be consumed or used by Muslims.
This is contrary to haram which is its exact opposite, so it cannot be consumed nor used, she added.
Any business that wants to make money from the billion-dollar halal market should have their products certified as halal. She said all Muslim countries will not accept non-halal products being exported to them.
“Even the biggest exporters from Mindanao like Dole and Del Monte products which are already certified as halal are still being closely scrutinized for pesticide residues as that would be considered as an impurity,” she said.
Almost every product that wants to enter the Muslim market are lining up for halal certification.
And while Halal makes one think only of food, Mohamad-Daud said even food supplements and non-food products like beauty soaps are also required to undergo halal certification before they are allowed to enter Muslim countries.
Unlike the other Muslim countries where there is only one Halal certification board, the Philippines has over 20 certification boards.
However, companies should also choose the most credible halal certification board because not all halal certifications are recognized by the Muslim countries.
Mohamad-Daud said the Cotabato-based Mindanao Halal Certification Board follows the guideline used by the Philippine National Standard for Food.
They have also formed a partnership with Thailand and Malaysia, and their Halal Boards have agreed to honor the local board’s halal certifications.
Among the biggest clients of the board are coffee manufacturers and food supplement companies.
“Most Muslim countries have become stricter about halal certifications because they discovered impurities from some of the imported canned goods before,” she said.
Most Muslim countries have very sophisticated laboratories and they can easily detect impurities like chemical traces or pork in products supposedly certified as halal.
She said there was one whole container which was burned down by the authorities upon entry in the Middle East because it was supposed to be halal-certified but they detected some impurities.
“If we are really in doubt about the contents of a certain product, then we send the products to the more sophisticated laboratories in Thailand and Malaysia,” she said.
The problem with the Philippines, she said, is that our laboratories here are not so high-tech unlike in Malaysia where they have these nose machines that can easily detect impurities.
Fees for halal certification range from as low as P5,000 for small companies to P50,000 for multi-national companies.
The certification given by the Muslim Mindanao Halal Certification Board, Inc. is good for only a year, unlike other boards that allow lifetime certifications.
— Manila Bulletin