Halal advancements: Indonesia on the brink of ‘golden opportunity’, but quality and infrastructure focus needed

24-Sep-2024 - Last updated on 24-Sep-2024 at 05:36 GMT

Indonesia will be able to capitalise on a ‘golden opportunity’ with its halal food products industry as long as it sets its mind to further improving product quality, safety and infrastructure. ©Getty Images

Indonesia will be able to capitalise on a ‘golden opportunity’ with its halal food products industry as long as it improves product quality, safety and infrastructure, according to a leading halal certification official.

Indonesia will be formally enforcing the regulation mandating all products including foods and beverages being traded in the market to be halal-certified (if not on the pre-approved Positive List) come October 2024, and according to local officials this is a prime opportunity for the local food industry to capitalise on.

“It is a golden opportunity for the local food industry to not only be the halal leader but also capture further growth with all foods entering Indonesia to be mandatorily halal this October,” Halal Product Assurance Organizing Body (BPJPH) Halal Registration and Certification Center Head Dr H. Mamat Salamet Burhanudin told the floor at the recent Fi Asia Indonesia 2024 event in Jakarta.

“The economic development we have seen in the halal sector is obvious, not just regular growth but very strong growth, with many different products now available.

“We have also increasingly seen that it is not only products mandated to have halal certifications but also those that are on the Positive List and in fact do not need to have this which are requesting to be halal-certified.

“This is strong evidence that halal certification is not only a religious issue, but also an economic and trade advantage as it adds value to their products by assuring safety and quality.”

That said, he acknowledged that given the rapidly-approaching mandate it also means that the industry is now in a challenging era as developments need to accelerate at an even faster pace to keep up.

“Some of the major challenges we still face are in terms of education as although halal is massive all over Indonesia we need to bring this further; and also in terms of infrastructure as a lot more development and capacity building is still required to meet all the anticipated needs,” he said.

“The halal industry and particularly the halal food industry will also need to pay special attention to food product quality.

“This is because there is a lot of international attention on this space at the moment, and Indonesia needs to not only maintain but also improve the quality of our products in order to meet international standards.

“Finally there is also the matter of regulations and standards, which are already in place but we will need to ensure that these are both imparted and enforced in a steady and fair manner.”

Major opportunities for growth

Indonesia is the largest Muslim market in the world, so this gives it a significant opportunity in terms of growing the local halal market from an internal basis.

“It is not only the enormous local market size that is an advantage, but also the fact that we have an abundance of raw material in Indonesia,” he added.

“This is also a country with a significant wealth of culture and heritage, and we are able to tap on these to develop new, innovative products which can then be both sold locally and exported due to our strategic location as a trade hub.

“We also know that the population of Islamic consumers in other markets such as the EU is on the rise, which means that our halal industry opportunities are also on the rise – just like many consumers are looking for Japanese or Korean foods as a trend, we can look to interest in halal food also growing if we can just capitalise on this.”