ABSTRACT
Manufacturers of food ingredients could often handle requests about the halal compliance of a product by issuing statements regarding the absence of ethanol and no ingredients of animal origin in the product. The need to determine if a product was halal was only relevant for actual meat products and not for other products and ingredients without apparent contents of animal origin. For these reasons, halal certification outside Southeast Asia was then mainly used by companies that exported poultry and meat products to Muslim countries. Companies that only had plants within a limited geographical area would generally choose a local halal certification body, whereas multinational companies might choose a certification body that could offer global auditing and certification. Many companies tried to reduce the problem by obtaining additional halal certifications. Most halal organizations may agree about 95% of the requirements, but it will probably be extremely difficult—if not impossible—to reach agreement about the last 5%.
