The Halal Certification Restaurants in Thailand: Institutional Analysis and Fieldwork Results

Abstract

This paper has three objectives, first to collects development of Thailand halal regulation. Second this paper seeks to examine Thailand's restaurants driving force toward halal certification. And finally, we analyze Thai Buddhists perspective toward Halal principle. The next section provides the preliminary results. The finding is to Thailand does not have the requirement of restaurants. Restaurants which want to apply for halal certification have to follow the implementation of entrepreneur. Most of the small restaurants are treated as small entrepreneurs and the fees are 10,000 baht. The rate is quite expensive for ordinary small restaurants. Thai halal regulation is designed to serve firm producing products. In case of without the approval or misuse a halal certificate in relation to any product or restaurants, there is no fine. On average, we found that Muslim restaurants in Thailand do not willing to apply for halal certificates since they do not see any benefit. Also Application process is costly, time consuming and imposes a burden to the business. • Non-Muslim consumers do not understand halal principle. The main reasons are a lack of knowledge and insufficient information on the benefits of the halal process.