4 replies to this topic

[shubbard]

We were informed our facility has to be porcine free, not just our equipment, to keep our Halal certification. We have 5 lines and only one product has the ingredient with pork on it.  Is there a way to stay in compliant without losing that product?

[SQFconsultant]

In general and regardless of only 1 line. To hold the certification you simply can not have pork in the facility. 

[nicetomeatyou]

There are different types of Halal certifications, full site, partial or you can even get certified for specific products.

Is this pork product new in your production? That can result in losing your full certification.

If that production line where the pork is, completely segregated (staff, equipment, machinery, storage, PPE, cleaning equipment etc.) then you should be able to get partial certification for segregated Halal production. Lot of places are Halal certified and are processing Haram products including pork, just need to have a good system in place to avoid cross contamination.

[GMO]

I've only ever worked with the Halal Food Authority in the UK and didn't have pork on site.  But we did process foods with alcohol and that was permitted to be on the same site with validated cleans.  We also had a small amount of ethanol in our hand sanitiser but with testing we could prove none was transferred to product.

 

 

Your best bet I would imagine is to ask for a copy of the standard your CB are auditing against and also see if they'd be accepting of pork speciation testing on the product as validation of no cross contact?  Also obviously you'd probably want levels of control and segregation in your plant akin to allergen control, e.g. different colour utensils, disposable PPE, extensive training etc.  The question will be if the standard permits it and if you think the expense of that control would be worth it.

[G M]

We were informed our facility has to be porcine free, not just our equipment, to keep our Halal certification. We have 5 lines and only one product has the ingredient with pork on it.  Is there a way to stay in compliant without losing that product?

 

It depends on the certifying body. 

 

We've been Halal for a decade or so and make a variety of products with pork in addition to beef, turkey, etc.  Sanitation and segregation are very important, just as they are for some other identity preserved statuses like organic.