Trends
Traditionally, internationally known brand names earn the easy trust of a consumer for its familiarity. The idea of a conglomerate-run product on the shelf suggests that it has met numerous quality and safety requirements, especially if it is from a western, developed country.
Many would agree that beauty, as a cultural creation, is extremely commercialised. Despite this, we still read of surgeries gone extremely wrong, or the rising trend of botox use or other beauty injections, as well as other nasty side effects in the pursuit of something as subjective as beauty. How does Islam view this? Zaahira Muhammad analyses.
Despite commanding an impressive market size, the Muslim cosmetic-using population seemed blissfully happy dabbing their cheeks with products of questionable health and religious compliance. On the other hand, perhaps they just sincerely did not know…
Snowy Mountains is a family-owned company of farmers in Australia who believe in humane farming activities using less chemicals, and employ cleanliness, safety and hygiene, which expanded with a difference; they moved on to producing Halal.
Recently, there have been numerous calls to ban live exports to the Middle East by animal welfare campaigners. A new international report, launched in Sydney, alleges Australia's live animal trade as one of the worst in the world, especially with Australia's live sheep export to the Middle East.
The call made by the Mindanao Food Congress in 2002 proposing to the national government to designate Mindanao as the Halal production centre may have triggered a challenge to the stakeholders of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in engaging and developing its Halal food industry.
In search for a credible Halal system, Michel Robichon SAS, one of two performing factories under the French international centralised organisation established by Groupe Glon, stumbled upon Malaysia’s Halal system, which they found to be the one meeting their requirements in terms of credibility, integrity, and assurance.
There is a marked increase in awareness of Halal certification within the Serbian business community; but two main factors are hindering its progress – the credibility of the Halal logo and the high fees to obtain one.
It might easily turn out to be a really bad case of deja-vu but Danish dairy producer, Arla Foods, are hoping that the latest uproar involving reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and an anti-Islam movie would not affect their bottom line as big as it did in 2006.
Shariah-compliant investment funds outperformed conventional ones last year and totalled more than $19 billion (Dh70bn) in assets.
