A New Logistics Trend: Kosher / Halal-Certified Air and Land Freight Services

A new trend in logistics services - Kosher / Halal-certified air and land freight services

In March this year, Nippon Express Co., Ltd. began offering a new domestic air-freight transport service with Halal certification in Japan, expanding its domestic Halal logistics services.

In 2014, Nippon Express Co., Ltd. became the first Japanese company to obtain Malaysian Halal logistics certification, and has since been developing global Halal logistics services. After first obtaining Halal certification for Japanese warehousing in 2016, it immediately expanded the scope of Halal-product handling, introducing into its warehouse transport services Halal-certified roll-container boxes used only for the consolidated transport of small-batch goods, and Halal-certified rail containers used only for large-batch goods.

By incorporating the working procedures of a Halal-certified logistics system into its "efficient and fast" domestic air-freight service, the company created a fast Halal transport service capable of handling goods as small as a single cardboard box.

In Japan, the Halal-observing population is about 200,000, and as foreign tourists and residents from diverse cultural backgrounds increase, Japan''s demand for Halal products has been rising in recent years. This has also created an opportunity for express companies to build a Halal logistics service network, thereby providing safe and trustworthy services to Halal-observing customers and other consumers.

In Europe, it has long become common practice for freight companies to use KOSHER Jewish-certified ISO TANK tank containers to transport fructose-glucose syrup, concentrated fruit juice, and liquid chemical products.

The ISO TANK (tank container) is a stainless-steel pressure container mounted inside a secured external frame, used to transport liquid goods such as alcohol, oils, liquid food, and chemicals, and is currently recognized worldwide as the safest pollution-free means of transport.

In recent years, SINOQUAL has also received many requests from the domestic freight industry to certify the Halal/Kosher status of their respective goods-transport materials. But such materials are not food, so how to certify their Halal/Kosher attributes has become one of the most important difficulties in the entire certification process.

If the packaging tanks, containers, etc. to be certified are brand new, currently it is only necessary to provide the corresponding factory-departure certificate and batch certificate;

If the packaging materials to be certified are reused, they should be cleaned according to internationally recognized cleaning standards, such as the regulations of ITCO (International Tank Container Organisation) and EFTCO (European Federation of Tank Cleaning Organisations), and relevant certificates should be provided;

Due to the special nature of the certification object, packaging tanks and containers of different batches within the same time period all need to provide corresponding certificates to the certification body, and the certification body will provide a Halal/Kosher certificate separately for each packaging tank or container inspected, to ensure the Halal/Kosher certification norms are truly implemented.

The spread of COVID-19 has not only raised people''s attention to food health and safety, but also made more and more consumers take a keen interest in Halal/Kosher food - which symbolizes cleanliness and high quality - and its related derivative products. SINOQUAL firmly believes that only by adhering to high certification standards of quality assurance and hygiene control can consumers eat with peace of mind and use with confidence!