UK: New Halal meat group formed

Mohammed Akram Gill (Director of Pak Mecca Meats Birmingham) and the chairman of Association of Non-Stun Abattoirs Ltd, said “This was long overdue the non-stun halal industry was without a voice.

“The lack of industry leadership and cooperation, especially given the state of the current economy the association aims to create and raise awareness of the halal industry according to the teaching of the Quran and the prophetic tradition.

Speaking at the Paragon Hotel Birmingham Ghulam Mustaffa (Premier Halal Meat), said “This is good news for Muslim consumers especially Muslim House wife’s. The ANSA logo will give them assurance that the meat they will be consuming is truly halal and is ritually halal slaughtered according to Islamic principles”.

Ejaz Najib (Director M. Najab and sons) Vice Chair said ”The halal word is most misused word in the UK for labeling of meat and poultry, ANSA will be able to offer cleans and wholesome product that the Muslims community wants”.

The non political and not for profit organization aims to act as a voice for the Non-Stun Halal Abattoirs and to create a better understanding of halal meat industry throughout the supply chain right down to the consumers.

The Association aims to build confidence amongst the UK Muslim population on English Halal meat industry by doing this it will open up the halal trade for export further improving the British economy.

The association welcomes the new legislation where all non stun meat will have to display a three-step label describing the animal’s country of birth, upbringing, and slaughter.

Ref: http://halalfocus.net/2011/06/16/uk-new-halal-meat-group-formed/

Bengal Meat basks in halal boom

Bengal Meat Processing Industries, an internationally certified meat producer and exporter, expects to ring up Tk 400 million in overseas sales this year by doubling its halal meat export.

The company was recently awarded halal certification by the Department of Islamic Development, Malaysia (JAKIM), which allows it to export processed meat to any halal market around the world.

"We now export 1000 tonnes meat a year and our target is to make 5000 tonnes by 2012," Mazharul Islam, managing director of Bengal Meat, told the FE in an interview.

He said they exported processed meat worth Tk 200 million last year.

The export market is confined to a few Middle Eastern countries like Kuwait, UAE and Saudi Arabia for the last seven years, mainly targetting expatriate Bangladeshis and other ethnic Muslims in those countries, only adding Malaysia to the list this year.

Dato Tan Lian Hoe, deputy minister for trade of Malaysia, welcomed the Bangladeshi meat processing company, which has achieved the certification of her country during the opening ceremony of a three-day Malaysian trade fair in the city.

She also visited the Bengal Meat factory at Pabna further facilitating the entry of Bangladeshi halal processed meat to the Malaysian market.

Mr Islam said that his factory, the only ISO certified meat processing company, can be compared with any international standard factory but stressed the government's effort to ensure certain issues for the development of meat processing industry in Bangladesh.

"The process of entering the Malaysian market began almost two and half years ago. We as a factory had no problem to be approved by any country but the government must ensure animal health management, disease control and disease free zone to promote Bangladesh as a meat exporting country," he said.

Although Bangladesh has the 7th largest cattle population in the world, it has one of the lowest per capita meat consumption.

"Generally, a person should intake 100 to 110 gm of protein. In Bangladesh, the per capita meat consumption is 12 gm," Mr. Islam added.

He said about 10,000 cows are producing about 1000 tonnes of meat and 40,000 goats producing about 300 tonnes are slaughtered everyday in the country.

He added the per capita meat consumption is bound to increase as the per capita income increases.

Bangladesh has to ensure the importing countries that the meat exported does not contain any hazardous elements and germs, said Mr Islam, adding "it requires an international testing lab."

The government earlier had a plan to form a high-profile committee to recommend ways to establish a board for certification for halal foods after repeated appeals from processed food exporters and setting up of a testing lab which is yet to see light.

Mr Islam said the most important thing for the growth of this sector is backward linkage and ensuring quality cattle raising to be an internationally approved meat exporting country.

He said developed countries like Australia and New Zealand have turned around their economy by harvesting the huge potential of their dairy farm sector, which also can be a prospective industry for Bangladesh too by having the right attitude towards the sector.

"The economy of Bangladesh is based on agriculture and cattle raising. People now just to learn the process of raising quality cattle and policy to make the sector commercially viable," he added.

Ref: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=139410&date=2011-06-16

RBC Holds Maulud Nabi Celebration, Receives Halal Certs

Bandar Seri Begawan - Royal Brunei Catering (RBC) organised a Maulidur Rasul 1432H celebration. The celebration was held at Seasons' Restaurant in Gadong yesterday.
The religious occasion saw a recital of al-Quran read by one of the RBC's staff. It followed by the mass reading of ratib al-attas and selawat led by Mudim Haji Metassim bin Haji Metassan. A religious lecture on Maulidur Rasul and leadership of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was delivered by Dr Hj Syahroni bin Hj Abd Kahar from Islamic Dakwah Centre.
The guest of honour for the event was Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Religious Affairs, Awg Haji Abd Aziz bin Orang Kaya Maharaja Lela Hj Mohd Yussof. Among those who attended the event were the ministry's senior officers, RBC senior management and its staff.
At the ceremony was an official handover of Halal certificates to RBC's four outlets, namely, Season Restaurant, Sungai Tilong, Kiulap and Tutong Express Fast Food.

Courtesy by:  Borneo Bulletin

Most halal products lack official approval

Just over a third of all the halal products offered for sale in Indonesia actually have official halal certificates, according food and drug monitoring agencies.

Only 41,495 products — 36.73 percent of all products registered at the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) — had official halal certificates, according to the BPOM.

Lukmanul Hakim, the Indonesian Ulema Council’s (MUI) Food and Drug Analysis Agency chairman, said on Tuesday that there was lack of awareness among manufacturers about the need for halal certification.

Halal certification was needed to show that certain products could be safely consumed Muslims and to ensure that the products could be consumed by all people, regardless of religion, due to the healthy and nutritious ingredients and hygienic production process required for halal products, he said.

“Halal certification will assure that the products are safe both in terms of sharia and hygiene,” he said on the sidelines of a hearing with the House of Representatives’ Commission VIII overseeing religious affairs.

According to government regulations on food labeling and advertising, every manufacturer or importer of products to be circulated in the Indonesian market had to declare that their consumable goods were halal.

They were also responsible for affixing halal labels to their products.

A 1996 Health Ministry regulation stipulated that the MUI’s halal certification process would be based on an edict (fatwa) issued by the council’s commission on the use of product ingredients.

The regulation further stipulated that a agreement letter on the use of halal logos would be issued by the BPOM.

“By attaching a halal logo, a manufacturer ensures that the product is safe for Muslims,” Lukmanul said, adding that such certifications were needed since most Indonesians were Muslim.

In fact, many consumable goods circulating in the domestic market lack halal certificates.

The House of Representatives has been deliberating a bill on halal products that would make it mandatory for food and drugs offered for sale in Indonesia to bear a halal label.

The bill, however, has sparked controversy among manufacturers, who said it would be an additional burden on the national economy. The bill was also criticized as superfluous since existing laws regulating food and drugs were sufficient.

Lukmanul, whose organization and the BPOM have been authorized to issue halal certifications, said the bill would hopefully increase awareness on the importance of certification.

According to a BPOM market survey, 54.9 percent of all products with halal logos that it found offered for sale had not been officially certified halal.

“Not all products with halal logos have official halal certificates,” Lukmanul said, adding that most halal logos were counterfeit.

Lukmanul said the situation was worsening since people were unable to determine whether if the products they purchased were genuinely halal.

BPOM director Kustantinah said the agency had continuously monitored consumable goods safety by intensifying pre-and post-sale controls.

“We still find many products improperly using halal logos, however,” she said.

She said that 357 products of 843 products surveyed by the agency in 2010 improperly displayed halal logos, meaning that they actually had no halal certificates.

Lukmanul said that popular awareness of the importance of halal certifications for daily consumable goods had significantly increased.

Citing a recent report, he said 21,837 products were certified halal in 2010, a 100 percent increase from 2009. About 21 percent of the products certified as halal were imported from the US, the EU, Australia, New Zealand and China, among other countries.

“We have seen a sharp increase in interest among foreign manufacturers to obtain halal certificates for their products. This is part of their strategy to win our market,” he said.

He said Chinese manufacturers’ awareness of halal certifications had increased sharply, as evinced by China’s 21 percent share of halal-certified imported products.

“They may think that a halal certification will increase the competitiveness of their products in the Indonesian market,” he said.

In another hearing session on the bil at the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Indonesian Consumer Protection Foundation (YLKI) chairman Soedaryatmo questioned the government’s ability to make the certification obligatory, saying that it had turned blind eye to companies that have refused to comply with the policy.

“It would be better that the certification is voluntary,” he said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

He also said that the existing procedure also burdened micro and small companies as certification officials have asked fees to conduct surveillance on their products.

Courtesy by: The Jakarta Post

How Democracy Became Halal

IN the Western study of medieval Islamic history, the institution of iqta — land grants from the sovereign to his soldiers — once loomed large, because scholars searched for reasons behind the Muslim failure to develop feudalism, and with it the contractual relationships that eventually led to constitutional government. But looking for parallels between the West and Islam — especially the classical Islamic heartland from North Africa to Iran — has always been politically a sad endeavor, since the region seemed so resistant to the ideas and institutions that made representative government possible.
President George W. Bush’s decision to build democracy in Iraq seemed so lame to many people because it appeared, at best, to be another example of American idealism run amok — the forceful implantation of a complex Western idea into infertile authoritarian soil. But Mr. Bush, whose faith in self-government mirrors that of a frontiersman in Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” saw truths that more worldly men missed: the idea of democracy had become a potent force among Muslims, and authoritarianism had become the midwife to Islamic extremism.
One of the great under-reported stories of the end of the 20th century was the enormous penetration of the West’s better political ideas — democracy and individual liberty — into the Muslim consciousness. For those of us who speak and read Persian, the startling evolution was easier to see. Theocracy-versus-democracy has been a defining theme of the Islamic Republic of Iran since the revolution, which harnessed both Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s religious charisma and the secular intelligentsia’s democratic aspirations. Over the last three decades, clerical Iran has nurtured an intense intellectual discourse about the duties that man owes to God.
When the legitimacy of theocracy started to unravel amid the regime’s corruption and brutality in the late 1980s, democratic ideas, including powerful democratic interpretations of the Islamic faith, roared forth. The explosion on the streets after the fraudulent presidential elections of June 2009 was just the most visible eruption of the enormous democratic pressures that had built up underneath the republic’s autocracy. More regime-threatening moments are surely coming.
Today’s Arab societies — less intellectually vibrant than Iran, in great part because their regimes have been more effective in shutting down internal debate — have become increasingly schizophrenic. Long before the tumult in Tunisia and Egypt, Arab liberal secular intellectuals had divided. Except for the fearless, who went to prison, liberals who didn’t flee their homelands usually became “court liberals,” whose views never seriously challenged the rulers.
Aware of the dismal fates of their kind in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini, they faithfully echoed the anti-Islamist, après-moi-le-déluge fears that the region’s autocrats used in Washington whenever American officials objected to tyranny. Democracy remained for them a cherished ideal, attainable at some future date when the Islamists had lost their appeal and the despots their power.
The secular intellectuals in exile, however, more forcefully embraced the democratic cause — their newspapers, books, magazines, Web sites and, increasingly, appearances on Al Jazeera — delivered their views back home. Intellectuals of such diverse viewpoints as Kanan Makiya, Edward Said, Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Burhan Ghalioun opened up an ever-increasing liberal, democratic space in foreign and Arabic publications. Yes, some mixed their message of liberty with other “Arab” priorities: anti-Zionism, anti-Americanism and anti-imperialism. But their support of democracy was clear, and became more acute after the 9/11 attacks.

Courtesy By: The Opinion Page

Ramiz Hasanov: “Azerbaijan has not determined “halal” standard yet”

Baku. Shahriyar Alizadeh – APA. “Azerbaijan has not determined “halal” standard yet”, chairman of the State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patent Ramiz Hasanov told journalists, APA reports.


He said it was disputed issue. “We addressed all Muslim countries, but there are some problems. The mark of “halal” on any good is a trade mark and it has no any significance”.

Concerning the quality of foods, the committee chairman said there were problems with bakery production and sanctions were imposed against more than one hundred bakeries last year.

Ramiz Hasanov said much work has been done for coordination of Azerbaijani standards with European standards. “We try to make our standards recognized in Europe. There is a presidential order on this issue. We adopted 162 standards last year. Azerbaijan exports jams, juices to Europe now”.

Halal meat: are you eating it without choosing it?

British public has no idea that they are eating halal meat, a senior member of the Church of England’s governing body said yesterday.

In comments likely to spark controversy, Alison Ruoff said, ‘this is just another back door way to the Islamification of our country.”

Livestock destined for halal meat is dispatched in a process that involves the animal being prayed over by a Muslim butcher as its throat is cut. Some religious abattoirs do no stun the animal, as Sharia law stipulate that the animal must hear the prayer. It’s estimated that it can take around 30 seconds to die.

Alison Ruoff continued: “We are still a Christian country in that 71% of people in the UK believe in a Christian God, not a Muslim God.”*

The interview on Premier Christian Radio’s Woman to Woman show yesterday tackled the issue of unlabelled halal meat being sold to unsuspecting customers in supermarkets; an issue that affect people of all faiths, and not just Christians.
Ruoff revealed that most stores stock halal lamb only, with Morrisons being the only store to label their products.

She believes that most meat imported from New Zealand is halal, enabling them to sell on to Muslim markets. She alleged that economically it’s cheaper to butcher the animals in the same way, rather than halal and non-halal.

Joy Barrow, Interfaith Relations Officer said: ”No person should be made to eat halal meat. Clearly it’s an issue of labelling.”

However, a Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “The specifications we give to our lamb suppliers relate to the safety, legality, quality, hygiene, animal welfare standards and product packaging for our lamb. We do not ask or check for compliance with any specific halal requirements, so couldn’t robustly support any halal claim on our packaging.”
Although when asked to explain a previous Sainsbury’s Head Office claim that all meat is halal, a later statement said, “In the case of lamb, Sainsbury’s purchases it from suppliers that use halal licensed abattoirs, which adhere to our strict quality and animal welfare standards.”
 
A Morrisons spokesperson said, “We only sell 100% British fresh beef, lamb and poultry. None of it is halal. The vast majority of our fresh beef and lamb is processed at our own abattoirs in Britain.  We adhere to high standards of animal welfare.  All of the cattle, lamb and poultry are stunned prior to slaughter.
 
However they went on to say: “Our own label frozen lamb is currently sourced from New Zealand and is halal, the animal is humanely stunned before slaughter and a prayer is read. We sell a limited range of halal and Kosher-branded frozen food products which are all clearly labelled as such.”

Peter Kerridge, CEO of Premier Christian Media Group said, “This is clearly a matter for concern. If meat were labelled properly people would have an educated choice on whether to eat halal meat or not. The British public, whatever religion they are, have a right to decide for themselves.”

Courtesy by: Inspire Magazine

What the Hell Is Halal? (Hint: Heavenly)

One of the biggest complaints about Seattle's light-rail system is the distance between stops. If you live between two stations, it's a bit of a schlep--a miserable experience on a rainy day. As someone who mostly rides the train for the food, it means that I see dozens of restaurants that pique my curiosity but which are a longer haul from my stop than my level of hunger is usually willing to wait.

But it's time those cafes (and my post-holiday muffin top) got some attention. The stretch between the Columbia City station and the Othello is especially rich with diverse food possibilities--Chinese, African, Vietnamese, and barbecue line Martin Luther King Jr. Way. So from the latter, I jumped off and headed north.
The Cafe: While riding light rail, a sign I see frequently is "Halal," usually followed by some descriptor like "African Meats." Frustrated by my own ignorance, I found myself under the bright, welcoming sign at Moga's Market (6727-B MLK Jr. Way S., 723-3588).
Inside were shelves of culinary basics: flour, sugar, and the like. Racks of clothing filled an adjacent room. Hanging from the racks were the burqas and hijab headdresses worn by the women chatting at the counter. There were also stands filled with long beautiful skirts that made me wish I were six inches taller. But there was no sign of these halal meats, so finally I asked.

"Halal is from God," one of the women at the counter explained. "At Safeway, that meat isn't Halal. Like Allah."
With the language barrier making details a little difficult, I did some Wikipedia sleuthing back home. Based on the Internet encyclopedia and my conversation at Moga's, it appears Halal is a designation similar to kosher. Halal meat is slaughtered in a ritual method known as dhabiha.
"And you sell Halal meat here?" I asked the woman, glancing around the store.
"It's in the back, we cut it," she replied. "Do you want beef? Goat? Chicken?"
I ordered a pound of halal steak and another woman headed for the back. 15 minutes later she returned with a gorgeous red chunk of beef that looked well over a pound. "$3.99," she said.

I don't think I've ever paid that little for such pretty meat.

Courtesy by: Seattle Weakly