Overview of the halal food control system in Malaysia

Abstract

Awareness of the complexity in the global food chain, combined with several major halal food issues and scandals, are an impetus for major changes in the halal food control system in Malaysia. Malaysia holds a special position in the global halal market as the first country that assigns a government agency to regulate its halal matters and certification. This article describes and discusses the system for halal food control in Malaysia as framed by five important components for an effective national food control system: halal food legislation; halal food management control; inspection; laboratory; and education, communication, and training. Significant improvement has been made on the system; however, a few issues and challenges persist.

Halal Virtual Inspection Critical Control Point

“…Different country may have different certification procedure depending on the demographical setting and local culture. On the other hand, it is also affected by "minor differences in the interpretation of certain aspects of the Shariah (Islamic laws) according to the different Islamic School of Thought or mazhab" which practised by Muslims in different countries [5]. This is because there is no unified and universal halal certification guideline or standard that can be applied by different countries all over the world.…”

“…In the context of food, this process includes everything from the raw materials, storage, processing plant, manufacturing flow and handling procedure, general hygiene, packaging materials, quality control, finished products and assurance practice [28]. Regular inspection involves the assessment of products or systems for the control of food, raw materials, processing and distribution in order to verify that it has met the required safety standard [5]. Like other inspection processes, halal inspection also covers the technical criteria such as evaluation on the raw materials used, processing, and many more.…”

“…Due to that, there are many food safety standards or quality assurance systems (QAS) were introduced and used for various purposes especially in food production sectors. This includes common QAS such as the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Good Hygiene Practices (GHP), Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), Codex Alimentarius and many more [5].…”

“…As stated in the Trade Descriptions (Definition of Halal) Order 2011 and Trade Descriptions (Definition of Halal) (Amendment) Order 2012, anything that is pure halal must be free from any animal parts that prohibited in Islam. Besides, it is also must not be hazardous and/or prepared using the instrument that contaminated with haram products (haram means the opposite of halal which refer to anything that prohibited in Islam) [5], [6].…”

Development and verification of a quantitative real‐time PCR method to identify and quantify gelatin derived from animal hide

“…hibit the consumption of any food products containing pork (Ahmad, Abidin, Othman, & Rahman, 2018;Amqizal, Al-Kahtani, Ismail, Hayat, & Jaswir, 2017;Van der Spiegel et al, 2012). In Hinduism, cows can be neither slaughtered nor eaten.…”