09 Dec 2022

Halal slaughter in the poultry industry

The Halal food market represents a great business opportunity for the poultry industry. Still, to approach this market, companies...

Eng. Fabio G. Nuñez

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The Halal food market represents a great business opportunity for the poultry industry. Still, to approach this market, companies need to certify their slaughterhouses as Halal, a simple process carried out through the Islamic associations of each country.

There are about 1.6 billion Muslims today, distributed among more than 200 countries. Of this total, 60% is in Asia, 20% in the Middle East and North Africa, and the remaining 20% is dispersed throughout other parts of the world. This vast population needs to stock up on Halal products, including cosmetics, clothing, personal care items, medicines, food, and much more.

Halal foods, an important part of this demand, accounted for 17% of consumption and 12% of international food trade, and made up a global market estimated at US$ 1.4 trillion in 2017, which is projected to reach 2, 7 billion, in 2023.

But what does Halal mean? In Arabic, Halal simply means “permitted.” In the religious context, Halal still refers to the action or behavior permitted by Islam, including what types of meat and what methods of preparing these meats are acceptable.

Its antonym, haram, refers to everything that is not allowed or acceptable by Islam. For example, pigs, blood, and reptiles are haram and, as such, are prohibited for consumption by Muslims. To find out which living things are halal or haram, click here.

For the poultry industry, the Halal food market represents a great business opportunity. Still, to approach this market, companies need, first, to certify their slaughterhouses as Halal, a simple process carried out through the Islamic associations of each country.

The certification requires companies to implement some administrative procedures for the control and release of the product and to have an Islamic inspector at the processing plant who is responsible for supervising the Halal work.
Regarding the use or not of stunning prior to slaughter, the stunning parameters and whether or not Muslim cutthroats are available for slaughter are requirements whose compliance, for certification purposes, is not universally unanimous.

To be considered Halal, the birds must have been slaughtered according to the ritual called Zibah or Zabihah. For this ritual, it is necessary to ensure that only live birds are slaughtered. Therefore, the neck is cut with a sharp knife and in one blow to minimize the pain and suffering of the bird, that this cut, in a half moon, simultaneously transects the carotid artery, jugular vein, and trachea, allowing blood to drain completely from the carcass (Read more here).

The ritual also requires that before slaughtering each bird, the Islamic inspector invokes the name of Allah through the Tasmiyah prayer. However, being the individual invocation impossible due to the high speeds of slaughter, it is acceptable that at the beginning of the slaughter, the words “Bismillahi-Allahu Akbar” (In the name of Allah, the greatest!) are pronounced.

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