It is one of the universal
truths of business that one of the most important keys
to success is an accurate understanding of the customer.
Whatever you produce, trade or offer, without the customer
there is no business.
I find it highly significant that this topic, 'Understanding
the Muslim Customer' should be a topic of interest at
the Middle Eastern Food Marketing Forum this year. I
am certain that ten years ago - or even five - this
topic would not be on the table. So what has changed?
The Muslims have been eating halal food for more than
one thousand four hundred years, so why is this now
a topic?
Our perception of this matter at The Halal Journal is
that we are at the cusp of a new market paradigm, the
birth of a global halal market. We are of the opinion
that the Halal represents an emerging market force that
will, over the next decade or two, exert a powerful
influence on the food market in a manner that has not
yet been fully anticipated.
Profiling the Muslim Customer
Who are the Muslim
customers? Where do they live? What do they buy? How
much do they spend? How do they make their decisions?
The Muslim customers are of course high-income individuals
with large families from the Arabian peninsula. They
are also middle-income Turkish or Egyptian families,
businessmen in the modern cities of China, Indian traders
in Johannesburg or Durban, third generation Pakistani
lawyers in the UK, street-vendors from Tangiers in Paris,
Bosnians living in Amsterdam, Lebanese in Australia,
black Americans in New York and Washington, middle-class
European families.
The Muslim customer is the most complex and diverse
market demographic imaginable. The Muslim customer lives
all over the world, straddling all income brackets.
The Muslim customer eats the widest range of foods from
curries to kebabs, pizza to haute cuisine, dim sum to
burgers. They cook at home for huge family gatherings,
and eat out in 5-star restaurants, hawker's stalls,
bistro's and fast food chains. The Muslim customer is
one person out of four, and frankly, could be anyone
at all, from anywhere in the world.
And yet, this diverse, amorphous and almost indefinable
group of people are bound together by the strongest
of bonds, by the command of their Creator:
"Oh mankind! Eat from the earth that which is halal
(lawful) and (tayyib) wholesome."
This means that the food must be
a. Permitted, i.e. not pig, blood, carrion, having claws
or talons, killed by strangulation, a violent blow or
a fall, gored or killed by wild animals
b. If it is animal, it must be slaughtered according
to specific parameters of Islamic law
c. Be it animal, vegetable, fruit, grain or seafood,
it must be 'tayyib', i.e. good, wholesome, healthy,
untainted during the stages of processing, packaging,
storage, transportation or transaction.
These parameters define the eating habits and by extension,
the purchasing preferences of two billion people around
the world. These parameters are, essentially, non-negotiable;
they are unmoved by fad or fashion, they are not subject
to age, income or geography, and are all the more powerful
by not being enforced. They are the parameters of a
people who choose, freely, to eat what is lawful.
A Powerful Market Sector
Commercially, the Muslim
consumers constitute the core of what is perhaps the
largest market sector in the food industry. The numbers
are of course impressive, but the growth rates are more
so. Europe's Muslim population of around 25 million
increased at a rate of 140% over the last 10 years,
America's by 25%, Australia's by 250%. Asia's one billion
Muslims increased by 12% over the same period, and a
quarter of them are in the high growth-engine areas
of India and China. This is not a market to ignore.
However, these already impressive figures are augmented
by several factors which stem from the fact that it
is not just the Muslims who purchase and consume halal
foods. Significant, and so far unquantified numbers
of non-Muslims eat halal food, partly by coincidence,
but increasingly by choice. Food producers from all
parts of the world have made the conscious decision
to 'go halal' with their product range. And why not?
A huge sector of the market insists on it, and the rest
are all happy to eat it as well.
Meat producers in Australia are increasing the percentage
of halal export produce. 80% of all lamb exported from
New Zealand is halal. If you travel to Cape Town, you
will notice that all chicken on sale is halal. In the
UK, there are approximately three million Muslims, and
yet, according to Dr Salim of the UK Food Safety Authority,
there are six million consumers of halal meat. A recent
delegation from Japan to Brazil to purchase chickens
for import, insisted on halal. Increasingly, European
Supermarkets have halal sections.
What must be kept in mind here is that Halal does not
simply refer to no pork or alcohol; it does not either
simply refer to meat, but, in this context to food in
general.
Halal - a wide Market Spectrum
Furthermore, Halal
encompasses several market forces and incorporates them
within its existing parameters, and significantly, within
the scope of its immediately approaching growth areas.
Leaving aside, for a moment, the matter of religion,
the current growth sectors of the food market include
the following
. Healthy food. Arguably the fastest growing sector
of the food market. In the US, for example, Wholefoods,
a one store start-up in the 70's is now a 3.7 billion
dollar company with 26,000 employees. It recorded an
average growth over the last 5 years of 19%, compared
with the 2.5% of the general grocery market.
. Ethnic Foods. According to Algodal, the leading ethnic
food consultants in Paris, ethnic food sales in Europe
are doubling every 4 years, with Southern Europe about
5 years behind Northern Europe. This phenomenon cuts
across income levels. It was urban, and is now provincial;
it was the single portion yuppie market, but now the
yuppie has a family; on average 3.4 ethnic meals per
person are consumed weekly; 1 out of every 2 new restaurants
in Paris offers ethnic food.
. Assimilation. Foreign foods become assimilated and
local tastes change, encouraged by global tourism and
reverse colonisation. Couscous is now seen as a French
dish; curry is the number one take away meal in the
UK; kebabs are a typical German staple;
. Ethical & Environmental. Supermarkets are increasingly
offering organic label foods, environmentally friendly
and 'Fair Trade' products, reflecting the consumers
concerns with these issues. Vegetarian is often as much
an animal welfare choice as health issue, and today's
consumer is an increasingly aware consumer.
. Safety Issues. Mad Cow Disease and Avian Flu have
had a greater impact on the meat and poultry markets
recently than any other force, fuelling the already
hot debates about animal welfare on one hand, and the
politics of food on the other. One suspected case, let
alone an outbreak, can have a dramatic impact on export
earnings.
These issues fall within the broader parameters of the
Halal; there is a natural zone of overlap. Halal incorporates
the healthy, the ethnic, the environmentally friendly,
the ethical; halal has clearly become assimilated into
all cultures around the world from Washington to Beijing.
Safety First
However, it is on the
primary issue of safety that we may well see the greatest
impact of Halal on the global meat market. The devastating
economic impact of Mad Cow Disease has revealed a disturbing
element of the industrialisation of the global meat
market, a market in which it has become increasingly
difficult to determine what a product actually contains,
or where it comes from. As a senior executive from one
of the largest animal feed producers in Europe recently
commented, BSE is an economic disease. The desire to
find the cheapest way to produce the biggest animals
led, inevitably, to the inclusion of animal proteins
in the feed, and the cheapest source of animal protein
is the waste, including brain and central nervous system
tissue, from the slaughterhouse floor.
This issue alone indicates why, in the relatively near
future, a halal standard will prove to be superior to
current food controls such as HACCP. Halal is the only
control methodology which takes into account the origin
and composition of the animal feed.
In Malaysia, for example, with the longest-established
Government-issued Halal Certification in the world,
we are seeing the emergence of Halal Industrial Food
Parks, reserved for Halal food producers and related
businesses. These initiatives have in turn led to the
emergence of Halal logistics providers such as Halal
cold storage and transportation companies offering Halal
supply chain control management, and most recently to
the creation of a Halal Free Trade Zone at the Port
of Tanjung Pelapas in Johor Bahru.
Other initiatives include a college for training in
Halal food management, standards and certification,
and Halal auditing to verify halal compliance from the
farm to the plate.
I mentioned previously that although meat is the market
leader in terms of halal, it is not just a matter of
meat. It is now commonplace to see a Halal logo on other
food items - milk, bread, juices and soft drinks, sauces,
prepared meals etc. The Halal logo has become a symbol
of quality assurance as well as religious compliance,
and this is now spreading to toiletries, cosmetics and
even starting to touch on pharmaceutical and medicinal
products as well.
A New Market Identifier
Halal represents a
very large and rapidly expanding market segment. More
importantly, it is a new force of market organisation
and identification. Its core fundamentals are not going
to change; they are going to expand and steadily incorporate
many of the market trends and indicators that I have
previously mentioned. Some form of global Halal standard
is inevitable, and we anticipate that it will be driven
into existence by the market, not the politicians. Once
established, it will be a very powerful market force.
Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth, both
by birth and adoption. It is estimated that by 2010,
the Muslim population will exceed 3 billion. Current
estimates as to the value of the global halal food market,
based on how much the Muslims spend per capita per diem,
range from 150 to 500 billion dollars annually. These
figures of course do not take into account the growing
numbers of non-Muslims who eat halal food. Our assessment
is that the market is actually too large to measure,
and it is growing all the time.
In our view, halal represents a new market paradigm
that goes far beyond food. It incorporates an entire
realm of goods and services. Halal ultimately represents
an market for halal goods and services produced in a
halal way, sold in halal arenas according to halal transactions,
using halal currencies.
Halal food is the tip of the iceberg of the impact of
Islam on commerce, a convergence that will form one
of the defining forces of the coming decades.
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Reproduced
with Permission.
First appeared in Halal Journal (http://www.halaljournal.com),
February 2005
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