Quality Assurance Development of Halal Food Products for Export to Indonesia

This paper deals with the vital problems of Halal food manufacturers in accordance to the changes in requirements and regulations of importing/exporting food to Indonesia. It is clearly known that the biggest market of Halal food products in Asia is Indonesia, thus the quality assurance of Halal products in this country has been developed to be a part of Food Security Strategy and Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs). The Halal requirements and regulations are emphasized on Halal manufacturing process. Indonesia's Council of Ulama Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) - the Indonesian most famous Halal certifier - has verified and accepted that many organizations of Halal certifiers around the world created much confusion in ways to properly follow the quality assurance for manufacturers/exporters. Therefore, this research focuses on exporters of Halal products to Indonesian food market by using the tools and methods of Halal certifier interview, Halal market survey and synthetic data of regulations and requirements. The result demonstrates insight details for manufacturers/exporters about crucial and up-to-date Halal regulations. Also, the paper depicts the Halal export process to Indonesia in practical manner. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.