France: Establishing the First French Halal Food Standard

Establishing a halal food standard

The French Standardization Association (AFNOR) unveiled the first French halal food processing standard on Friday, 15 September. AFNOR officials told AFP that this standard was established at the request of French manufacturers in the food industry to promote the export of certain products; Muslim certification bodies affiliated with the mosques of Paris, Lyon and Evry also participated in this activity. AFNOR said: 'To enable the industry to conduct its own risk analysis of halal certification, the key steps that could make its non-halal production halal were identified, and the manufacturing process was defined.'

But this standard is experimental and voluntary, not mandatory. In addition, because of the tensions surrounding the HALAL community and the political-awareness participants, some major disputes were excluded for the sake of development, but the slaughter conditions of animal products remain important to Muslims.

Although it defines a method for unifying halal (according to Muslim law) standards, it only covers part of the downstream production process of raw materials—processed products such as canned goods, ingredients, frozen meat and confectionery. In addition, it does not have a list of forbidden items, even some that are universally forbidden, such as pork and alcohol.

'The role this standard plays is not to decide the definition of what is forbidden and what is allowed. We provide a guideline to adapt to customers' requirements, so the theme of the standard is to guide good operating practices and analyze risks,' said Nadine Normand, head of the agriculture department at AFNOR.

A US$600 billion market

'The establishment of the first standard is seen as crucial in the industry. Until now, we have had to accept customers' requirements and could not make any suggestions, because France had no standard,' Eldjida Makhloufi explained to AFP.

The standard is based on seven special provisions in the code established by the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 'It should prevent the occurrence of non-halal raw materials entering the final finished product,' the standard states. 'The idea is a think tank; this tool will let us move forward and give confidence to enterprises wishing to export.'

'The market is expanding day by day. Our competitors have already occupied the market we should be sharing, and accuse France of not having relevant halal standards.' In fact, the halal market is expected to break the world record, reaching US$600 billion. In France alone, the 2010 halal market is expected to reach 5.5 billion euros, of which 4.5 billion comes from food products, said Solis, which specializes in market research.