Kosher and Halal Business Compliance

John Lever, Johan Fischer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351660839
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Business allgemein

Kosher is a Hebrew term meaning 'fit' or 'proper' and halal is an Arabic word that literally means 'permissible' or 'lawful'. Within the last two decades or so, kosher and halal markets have become global in scope and states, manufacturers, restaurants, shops, certifiers and consumers around the world are faced with ever stricter and more complex requirements – most clearly exemplified by Muslim and Jewish groups' call for kosher and halal certification by third party certification bodies. During this period hundreds of kosher and halal certifiers have emerged around the world, and while thousands of manufacturers, restaurants and shops have been certified, the majority have not.

Kosher and halal requirements are comparable, but there are also many differences and the book discusses how these similarities and differences affect production, trade and regulation around the world. The authors research demonstrates that there is a need to address kosher and halal markets simultaneously and answers the question "what characterizes global kosher and halal markets and how can businesses comply with the rising demands and requirements that have emerged?"

This is the only book of its kind and it will appeal to manufacturing companies, restaurants and shops that already are or want to be kosher/halal certified. The book can also be assigned in a variety of upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in business studies, management and marketing. Moreover, the book will be of interest to readers in the natural sciences (for example, food scientists) and outside academia, that is, to state as well as non-state kosher/halal certification bodies, policy makers, interest groups and consultants. Kosher and Halal Business Compliance is accessible in style, global in scope and based on decades of research.

Part I

Overview

1 Introduction

Kosher is a Hebrew term meaning ‘fit’ or ‘proper’. Halal is an Arabic word that literally means ‘permissible’ or ‘lawful’. This introductory chapter explains why and how kosher and halal markets have expanded globally during the last couple of decades. We review sources relevant to business organisations and demonstrate how our book fills a gap in the market. We show how the book is organised into chapters that each in their own way explain what the central challenges are for business and how these challenges can be overcome.

Kosher and halal products (particularly meat) can be traced back thousands of years, but within the last two decades in particular the markets for kosher and halal food and other products have grown rapidly to become global in scope. During this period, states, manufacturers, restaurants, shops, certifiers and consumers have been presented with stricter and more complex kosher and halal requirements in line with the growth of third-party certification bodies that have emerged to assure consumer confidence in this rapidly changing context. Hundreds of kosher and halal certifiers have emerged in many countries around the world, and thousands of manufacturers, restaurants, shops and products have been certified.

The kosher market first began to expand in the middle decades of the 20th century, and today kosher consumption is growing steadily among religious and also non-religious consumers. In the US, more than 60% of all kosher food consumption is now linked to non-religious values associated with health and food quality; many Muslim consumers also accept kosher products, notably when halal availability is limited. Globally there are estimated to be around 25 million kosher consumers, and in 2008 sales of kosher foods in the US totalled $12.5 billion (Mintel 2009). Kosher is one of the oldest food assurance systems in the world and despite the widespread acceptance of common practices there are many independent kosher certification bodies. The Orthodox Union (OU) is perhaps the best-known global kosher certification body among the Big Five kosher certification bodies in the US (see Chapter 6), but there are many other national, regional and local rabbinical authorities and Jewish courts of law offering kashrut (Jewish religious dietary laws) services.

The market for halal products has also grown rapidly in recent decades and the value of the halal food market alone has been estimated at around $632 billion annually (Bergeaud-Blackler, Lever and Fischer 2015). The Muslim population is projected to increase globally from 1.6 billion to 2.2 billion by 2030 and the potential for market growth has been widely recognised. In the coming decades, the halal market is expected to grow by more than 100% in some locations and the demand for certified halal meat products is predicted to expand rapidly (Miller 2009). In recent decades, Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand developed the first halal standards and certification systems for internal and latterly for external markets (Fischer 2011, 2015a). Today, new players from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other Middle Eastern countries are entering the market.

Although kosher and halal requirements are different in some ways, they are comparable in others, and many companies indicate that halal certification is more easily acquired if the company is already kosher certified. Quite a number of non-meat products can be certified as both kosher and halal, products such as falafel, for example, and our research demonstrates that there is a need to address kosher and halal markets simultaneously (Fischer 2015a; Lever and Fischer 2018). Global in scope and based on decades of empirically grounded research, this book explores what the main challenges are for businesses working in or thinking about entering these markets and how these challenges can be addressed. The research question answered in the book is this: What characterizes global kosher and halal markets, and how can business comply with the rising demands and requirements that have emerged?

During long periods of research and consultancy, we found that state agencies, manufacturers, shops and restaurants would like to have a book that explains modern and global kosher and halal. To our knowledge, there is no competing book in English on the market. The book is aimed at manufacturing companies, restaurants and shops that already are or want to be kosher and/or halal certified. It will also be useful for a variety of upper-level undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in business studies, management and marketing. It will also be of interest to readers in the natural sciences (for example, food scientists) and similarly outside academia for state as well as for non-state kosher and halal certification bodies, policy makers and consultants.

There is a body of literature on kosher and halal in food production, which is typically written by Jewish and Muslim food scientists, including, most notably, Kosher Food Production (Blech 2008) and Halal Food Production (Riaz and Chaudry 2004). Joe Regenstein of Cornell University’s Department of Food Science has written extensively on kosher but also on halal from a food science perspective. The present book is also based on research in our book for the academic market: Religion, Regulation, Consumption: Globalising Kosher and Halal Markets (Lever and Fischer 2018). These sources are somewhat ‘academic’ and technical in their discussion of kosher and halal, and they do not offer systematic comparisons between the two. This book is different in that it has a comparative perspective. Based on our extensive research among certifiers and companies, we explain how businesses understand and practice kosher and halal and how other organisations can learn from these findings.

Organisation of the book

After this introduction, Part I continues with Chapter 2, which explains the underlying principles of kosher and halal, and Chapter 3, which explores their similarities and differences. In Part II of the book, Chapter 4 focuses on certification, inspections and logos, and we discuss how businesses can address challenges related to religious inspections and the design/placement of kosher/halal logos. Chapter 5 examines kosher/halal standards as ‘formal’ standards and also as ‘practical standards’ used in production. Chapter 6 lists and discusses important types of kosher and halal certifiers and the experiences of businesses working with these certifiers, while Chapter 7 briefly explores the role of government in kosher and halal production and trade. Chapter 8 reviews research on kosher and halal consumption in the everyday lives of Muslims and Jews in different geographical contexts, offering a general fourfold categorisation of consumers. Chapter 9 starts off Part III with a focus on meat production, the primary historical market for kosher and halal. Chapter 10 then deals with biotech, Chapter 11 with dairy production, 12 with bread and bakery, before Chapter 13 looks at fruit and vegetables. In Chapter 14 and 15 we turn to shops and restaurants respectively, before Chapter 16 examines the food service industry in public institutions. This is followed by Chapter 17, which examines how religious principles are shaping new knowledge, work processes and certification practices. Chapter 18 looks at developments in ‘religious science’, before Chapter 19 ties the findings of the book together and reflects on the challenges and opportunities kosher and halal present for business organisations.

Bibliography

Bergeaud-Blackler, F., Lever, J. and Fischer, J. (eds) (2015) Halal Matters: Islam, Politics, and Markets in Global Perspective. New York: Routledge.

Blech, Z. Y. (2008) Kosher Food Production. Ames, IA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Fischer, J. (2011) The Halal Frontier: Muslim Consumers in a Globalized Market. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fischer, J. (2015a) Islam, Standards and Technoscience: In Global Halal Zones. London and New York: Routledge.

Fischer, J. (2015b) Keeping enzymes kosher: Sacred and secular biotech production. EMBO Reports.

Lever, J. and Fischer, J. (2018) Religion, Regulation, Consumption: Globalising Kosher and Halal Markets. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Miller, T. (2009) Mapping the Global Muslim Population, A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Muslim Population, Pew Research Centre.

Mintel (2009) Kosher Foods – US – January 2009.

Riaz, M. N. and Chaudry, M. M. (2004) Halal Food Production. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

2 What is kosher and halal?

Kashrut and kosher law (halacha) date back several thousand years. As a system of regulation and food assurance it is based on a number of verses found in religious texts and the decisions of rabbinic authorities, as originally outlined in the Torah, the first five ‘Books of Moses’ (specifically Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy) and texts linked to the Talmud. These include:

• ‘Any animal that has true hoofs, with clefts through the hoofs, and that chews the cud-such you may eat … And the swine – although it has true hoofs, with the hoofs cleft through, it does not chew the cud: it is impure for you’ (Leviticus 11:3, 11:7);
• ‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk’ (Exod. XXXIV, 26; Duet XIV, 21) and;
• ‘You shall not kill of thy heard and thy flock which the Lord hath given you, except as I have commanded you’ (Duet 12:21).

Meat only qualifies as kosher if the animal of origin is slaughtered using appropriate methods (shechita) as interpreted through these commentaries and traditional customs and practice. As well as the proscribed method of slaughter, there are a number of other prohibitions such as a ban on pork, the mixing of milk and meat and the acceptability/unacceptability of specific species of animals and plants. Jews are only permitted to consume the meat of animals that ‘chew the cud’ and have ‘cloven hooves’, for example, cattle, sheep and goats; sea creatures with fins and scales are acceptable, whereas shellfish are not.

Other important concerns relate to rennin, gelatine, lactose, sodium caseinate (a protein produced from casein in skimmed milk), vitamins, eggs, grape products, fruits, vegetables and Passover (a major Jewish festival) items, which we will deal with in relevant chapters. In sum, kosher law is the application of a system of religious precepts and beliefs that govern the types of foods that Jews can and cannot eat: food not aligned with these requirements is called treifa (non-kosher). Today kosher is widely used to designate the ‘rabbinic properness’ or personalised understanding of a wide range of objects, products, activities, ideas and institutions.

As kosher regulation started to increase in the 1990s, Jewish organisations and consumers claimed that while non-Jewish food businesses and management practitioners understood how kosher laws affected their own products, they lacked a deeper understanding of the religious significance that they hold for kosher consumers and rabbis. They argued that this situation warranted increased market regulation and cooperation between Jewish authorities/groups and business/industry. Consequently, kosher is expanding in terms of the number and types of products certified. In the US, many non-Jewish consumers also see kosher as a marker of quality control, which means that competition between the Big Five kosher certification agencies has increased greatly. From the 1990s onwards, the Big Five have largely dominated the global kosher market. At the national level, Israel, the US, the UK and France are important markets for kosher production, trade, regulation and consumption.

Case Study: Kosher in the US

This case is largely based on Kosher Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food (Lytton 2013).

The US kosher market is an example of successful private- sector regulation in an era of growing public concern over the government’s inability to ensure food safety (Lytton 2013). From the 1990s onwards, the Big Five kosher certification agencies not only became dominant in the US, they also started to make inroads into the global kosher market.

• Orthodox Union (OU)
• OK Kosher Certification
• Kosher Certification and Supervision
• Star-K
• Chicago Rabbinical Council

Today more than 10,000 businesses produce kosher food in the US, and this market generates more than $12 billion in annual retail sales.

The US kosher market is an example of how successful private-sector regulation can work successfully in an era of growing public concern over government’s inability to ensure food safety at the national and also at the global level. Historically, outbreaks of foodborne illness, fraud, corruption and misleading food labels prompted a network of more than 300 private kosher certifiers throughout the United States to ensure compliance with religious standards of food production and reliable marketing. This case also highlights the emergence of third-party certification that is essential to understanding kosher and halal regulation from the 1990s onwards. Comparing the US kosher market to most other countries where there is a kosher market, one finds that these are less regulated and reminiscent of the US market before the 1990s. The origin of private kosher certification agencies is inseparable from new demands for industrially prepared foods among Jewish consumers around 1900 that spurred a gradual professionalisation of kosher supervision based on ethical standards and increasing bureaucratisation of kosher certification agencies. Unsurprisingly, fraud and misconduct still occur, but today these agencies still utilise social networks to establish and enforce the American standard of kosher certification (Lytton 2013).

In the US kosher is big business, and the country’s 10,000 kosher-producing companies make more than 135,000 kosher products for more than 12 million American consumers. Only 8% of kosher consumers are religious Jews, while other consumers choose kosher food for other reasons, notably health, quality and because of its similarity to halal. The growing popularity of kosher food in the US can be seen as a response to cultural anxieties about industrialised food supply and a way of personalising food production. Five features of the market for industrial kosher certification can account for its ability to provide reliable certification:

• sufficient consumer demand
• brand competition among certifiers based on reliability
• a high level of interdependence among certifiers
• concentration of market power between the Big Five
• as well as active and vigilant consumers.

To conclude, this case shows how and why kosher has become a big and regulated business sector in the US. It also demonstrates that business must study the aspects of national kosher markets when producing or marketing kosher products.

Halal literally means ‘lawful’ or ‘permitted’ and is based on statements from selected verses and rulings by Islamic scholars (ulama). Halal is that which is beneficial and not detrimental to Muslims, and a number of conditions and prohibitions must be observed at all times. These conditions and prohibitions, for example:

• ‘Allah makes good things lawful to them and bad things unlawful’ (7, 157).
• ‘You who believe, eat the good things We have provided for you and be grateful to God, if it is Him that you worship’ (2, 172).
• ‘He has only forbidden you what dies of itself and blood and flesh of swine and that over which any other name than that of Allah has been i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Jewish and Arabic terms
• Part I Overview
• Part II Central themes and actors
• Part III Case studies in context
• Part IV Conclusions
• Index