Over the past two years, plant-based food consumption has grown by 49% across the EU, reaching a total sales volume of €3.6 billion.
Halal Europe
2025-05-15
Europe is a major source of food, cosmetics and medicine exports to Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East.
Unlike Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand, halal in Europe is not well organized with regard to food and product safety standards.
As Muslim countries introduce new halal standards and strengthen their certification requirements, some European exporters find it increasingly difficult to comply with the new halal rules. European governments also view these new rules as barriers to trade with Muslim countries.
Does this reflect a lack of understanding of halal or do they have a valid argument?
The halal industry currently has the following four stages of development:
(1) Muslim companies (trust between buyers and sellers);
(2) Halal products (certification of raw materials and production processes by Halal certification bodies);
(3) Halal supply chain (all links in the supply chain must be halal);
(4) Halal value chain (handled by one company).
Currently, many European and Muslim countries are in the second stage of this evolution, focusing on the source of raw materials and production processes of products.
In contrast, Malaysia and Indonesia are moving towards developing robust halal supply chains (Phase 3), which are a new requirement for the food, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.
This requirement is intended to provide consumers with a complete access to the aforementioned Muslim market from a purchasing perspective.
This operation is in line with the issuance of several standards related to halal supply chain management, such as Indonesia (HAS 23000:2012), Malaysia (MS 2400:2010) and the International Halal Logistics Standard (IHIAS 0100:2010).
This means that halal and its rules are not static but dynamic.