KUALA LUMPUR: A food labelling dispute could hurt Malaysia’s ambitions to become a centre for halal food production and grab a piece of a worldwide market worth more than $400 billion a year, consumer groups and manufacturers say.

Halal food standards can be a touchy issue in Muslim-majority Malaysia, where concern is growing that products from chocolate to cosmetics may contain substances banned to followers of Islam.

At a time when Malaysia is touting the strength of its halal certification process in a bid to win a chunk of the market, the dispute has prompted it to tighten enforcement of the rules.

In one case, cans of minced pork from China have carried halal logos. In Kuala Lumpur, a restaurant has been raided and sausages and burgers from two food processing plants have been seized and tested for pork, which is forbidden to Muslims.

There is a climate of suspicion.

Consumer groups stress that even meat that excludes pork may still fall foul of halal standards

“This kind of thing is going to kill our reputation,” said Nadzim Johan, chief of a Muslim consumer group that says it has 30,000 members nationwide.

“Especially if we are going for a halal food hub, the habitual abuse of this logo is not doing a good thing for the country,” he added, referring to the halal certification mark food manufacturers use.

Halal means lawful, and Islamic law requires halal meat and poultry to be slaughtered according to religious ritual. Foods that are not halal are pork, carrion, blood and poisonous animals. Alcohol is also forbidden.

“Nobody really knows how big the market is,” said Abdalhamid Evans, research and intelligence director of the Halal Journal, a trade magazine.

“People are basing estimates on the number of Muslims in the market. But there are a lot of non-Muslims eating halal meat.”

But the labelling dispute has touched a nerve.

Lawmakers have demanded that manufacturers who falsely claim to meet the standards be whipped and the government has announced plans to add a security-boosting microchip to its stamp for items that meet halal requirements.

Evans said the labelling scare had forced the government to monitor use of the logo more tightly.

“Now the ministry of domestic trade, with about 2,000 people, will police it, instead of just half-a-dozen people from the religious affairs one,” Evans said.

At one halal plant outside Kuala Lumpur, a gleaming stainless steel machine pumped out endless links of chicken sausages. Then some of the firm’s 200 employees arranged them on tiered trolleys and wheeled them into huge ovens to be cooked.

“Halal is all about credibility and people’s confidence in your product,” said Jamaluddin Kadir, chief executive of Prima Agri-Products Sdn Bhd, which produces 20 metric tonnes of halal meat each day for delicatessens, fast food outlets and hotels.

“If they begin to doubt whether your product is genuinely halal, they will just not buy it.”

Prima exports 60 per cent of its production and has plans to expand output tenfold in order to export to more countries.—Reuters