Islamic Dietary

It is an obligation for Muslim to ensure that the food they purchased or consumed are according to the Islamic dietary code called "Halal". Halal is the Arabic word means "permissible" or "allowed", and the Halal word was adopted into Malay vocabulary. In the last three decades, halal logo was never been a concern to Muslim consumers in Malaysia. At that point of time, there were very few hypermarkets and Muslim consumers purchased their daily food supplies from small shops and retailers near to their houses which in most of the cases they were well informed of the sources of the product that they purchased or consumed. The Muslim back then was very clear of their religion obligation without any requirement to display halal logo on food product which they intended to purchase or consume. Being living in a Muslim country, the Muslim consumers' confidence level on the halalness of food products were portrayed by their act of conduct. Muslims do not purchase meat or poultry food product from non-Muslim sellers not only due to their religious stand point but also due to the social and culture aspects.

The rapid growth of country's economy, changes in the consumers' lifestyle, education level and globalization had synergizes the development of the country's food industry. In addition to the development, the emerging of hypermarkets had taken over the function of small traditional shops and retailers as the center for customers to source their food products supplies and consumption. These changes had resulted to certain level of pressure by the Muslim consumers' to the authority like JAKIM in ensuring the products supplied to the market are meeting the Islamic dietary law. Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM) involvement to confirm the status of halal on consumer food products and goods in the country began in the year 1974 when the Research Center of Islamic Affairs Division of the