Brunei can excel in non-meat segment of global halal market

Brunei can excel in non-meat segment of global halal market


Others are just as slow: Hajj Abdulhamid David Evans. Picture: BT/Debbie Too

Saturday, August 23, 2008


AN OFT-ASKED question following the recent International Halal Expo was whether Brunei stands a chance in competing with other players in the global halal food industry? Hajj Abdulhamid Evans, managing director of Imarat Consultant, a consulting firm specialising in the halal market and one of the event managers for the expo, said that the key for Brunei is to focus on niche markets in the global halal arena. One of the leading voices of the halal movement around the world, Evans had more than a few words to say in an interview with The Brunei Times.

Is there a global halal standard to begin with?

There isn't a global standard, and its one of the things that has been discussed for the last few years and there are a few different initiatives going on ... Malaysia has a standard, and Brunei has a standard, which are produced by the standards authorities of those countries, and Singaporean Muslims are discussing their standards as well but the predominantly Muslim countries, like the Gulf states are only starting to think about this now.

How does the Brunei halal standard compare?

It is actually very good and stringent. It's a tough standard in terms of whether they allow stunning of animals prior to slaughter and hand slaughter versus mechanical slaughtering and Brunei's standard takes a purist approach, which is good. This makes it more difficult to apply because it's a higher standard so in some aspects of the market, there may be fewer people able to conform to that standard. People will conform to your standards if they want to sell their goods to you.

In a way does the standard become a slight disadvantage to Brunei?

Its disadvantage is that Brunei is a very small market so the number of people who would conform if they want to sell to Brunei is relatively small. Even in Malaysia, they've conformed to Malaysia to get their business but it's still not that big a market. If you're talking about the Gulf Cooperation Council, they have a huge buying power and the standard that they roll out is going to have a different kind of impact in the market, because food exporting markets who want to reach that market will learn to be compliant with the Middle Eastern standards.

What can Brunei focus on?

One of the approaches that came up during the conference and one of the discussions we had recently, in terms of certifying with non-meat products, is that Brunei be more focused on pharmaceuticals, ingredients, health care products, personal care products and non-meat products. The Brunei standard is actually much more suited to that because there's this quality control that matters more if you're looking at all the details. The Brunei standard doesn't just focus on the slaughtering process, but also on manufacturing and auditing procedures. It's comprehensive and very well done.

What niche markets are available in the halal industry?

Look at ingredients, pharmaceutical products, botanicals and things like that. It suits the industry and even some of the downstream products from oil and gas are getting into the field of pharma. I know there is interest from the Japanese to look at the production or packaging or branding of pharmaceutical products in the new industrial park. So a niche like that is somewhere that no one's really gone, and that plays more to Brunei's strengths, so you can leave the mainstream to other people because there's going to be fierce competition in that.

Could you elaborate more on this?

I discussed with Nestle last year, and I remember asking them what the biggest challenges are for expanding their halal production, and they said that the big challenges was going to find small ingredients like emulsifiers, colourings and all those little additives and getting halal sources for those are quite challenging. The industry in general is looking for meat substitutes for example, people are arguing about gelatin and how to source halal gelatin, but gelatin can be made from vegetable sources as well, so if you go there, then the question of whether it's halal or not doesn't really arise and those kind of opportunities present themselves to Brunei. Good joint ventures could come out of that.

You've said before that Brunei "needs to speed things up a bit".

On one hand you can say that Brunei is a bit slow, but on the other hand, it's not, and because I've worked with other countries on this, and they're just as slow. Funnily enough, Brunei's small size actually can become an advantage because they would be able to be a bit more nimble when it comes to adjusting to changes or focus or revisiting certain decisions and strategies with a small size. It should be easier to stay focused and move things along. To be honest, when I've looked at the progress being made in other countries, Brunei isn't any slower actually.

Can you give any examples of the events and activities that have been done that have made you think otherwise?

When I was here in 2006 for the first halal conference, there was no standard developed and by 2007, it was published and it was really well designed and a series of six books comprising of halal standard booklets, with syariah decisions on questions in the food industry, and those were really good products that were done in a really short period of time.

To be continued

The Brunei Times