Our subsidiary’s products are processed fruits and don’t contain meats or no contact with any meat products. Customer requires them to comply with HALAL certification. They are confused if they have to comply with this kind of requirement or not.
What would you advice? Thanks
It would help us to assist you more if you elaborate the processing steps involved. As already explained here, the claim for halal is not only concerned with meat. A product claimed to be halal need to fulfill following mandatory conditions.
1- No direct or indirect use of totally Haram (unlawful as per Islam) or Mashbooh (suspected) ingredients. (for more information see www.codexalimentarius.net/download/standards/352/CXG_024e.pdf )
2- No cross contamination of Haram and Halal. Separate processing of Halal and Haram/Mashbooh products/ingredients.
3- Hygiene (Cleaning and sanitation, personal hygiene etc.).
Regards:
M.Zeeshan.
Please refer to post #22 of this thread link.
Me and my colleague (a food technologist) have reviewed your process flow diagram and associated documents. Before jumping towards the review results I would like to highlight some other points.
1- It seems after reviewing your process diagram that there are concerns over Halal issues, therefore if your customer requires your product to comply with HALAL certification then you have literally two options. (1) Satisfy your customer by giving justifications over halal concerns. (2) Get your system assessed/certified by any authentic Islamic Scholar (IS) or Halal Certification Body (HCBs).
2- I have missed explanation of two points in the list of mandatory conditions required for a product claimed to be halal.
(a) Guiding principle of claiming an ingredient/practice as Halal/Haram is as follows:
Any ingredient or element of ingredient which is harmful for human health or spirit in short or long term is haram. That elements and some
obvious carriers of those elements are defined in Quran. Islamic Scholars of diffferent School of thoughts have compiled a list of elements and
their sources which are halal and haram. Besides this, some cases are very interesting which surely make a halal item Haram. For example your
have processed a haram item over a surface, clean the surface with ordinary cleaning procedure and processed a halal item over it. Besides food
safety issues, there would be severe Halal issues at this step due to chances of Halal-Haram Cross Contamination. Another example is any food
contact surface, especially your primary packaging material. If that material is made of any haram/suspected ingredient, that may become a halal
concern.
(b) Some IS or HCBs have a concern over integrity of an ingredient. A so-called halal ingredient could have a concern if it is grown
up and get nutrition with haram source or there are chances of having some intoxicants elements in the ingredient. For examples, if we get
authentic information that a hen is fed up with haram feed, then that hen will be haram even it is slaughtered as per Islamic Code of Practices. Or,
if there are chances that a fruit / vegetable may have intoxicant elements then that fruit itself become a Halal concern.
Now comes to the outcome of the review of your documents:
1- First and most important thing, you must be sure that your fruits and all your ingredients (used in Mixing Step) are Halal. Some fruits may have some concerns having intoxicant elements such as Durian. [Uncooked durian seeds are toxic due to
cyclopropene fatty acids and should not be ingested.
[42] .a study by the
University of Tsukuba finds the fruit's high sulphur content caused the body to inhibit the activity of
aldehyde dehydrogenase, causing a 70% reduction of the ability to clear toxins from the body.
[54] . Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian]
2- It may be a halal concern that what method you are using for Ripening. If your are using some chemicals, then those chemical should be assured as halal.
3- Your sanitizing chemicals may become a halal concern as these may contain alcohol or any intoxicant element. Some Halal Standards (I am not 100% sure about this) have set an allowable limit for residual suspected/unavoidable haram elements in the food.
4- Your packaging may become a halal concern if you are using waxing at food contact side or the inner most layer is made up any haram/suspected material.
5- Your peeling process may become a halal concern if your are using any chemical during process.
The above stated point of views are solely based on personal considerations. We are not the expert or Authentic Islamic Scholar. Therefore it is advised that do not legally claim your products as Halal until and unless you get that products assured/certified as Halal.
For more authentic information or any query you may visit following websites:
http://www.halal.gov.my/v2/http://www.ifanca.org/index.phphttp://www.sanha.co.za/a/index.phpRegards:
M.Zeeshan.