Our product is vegetarian. Do we still need halal certification?

Usually yes, if the destination requires it for the category. The requirement attaches to the product and the market, not to whether the recipe contains meat. Processing aids, carriers, enzymes, alcohol used as a solvent and shared production lines are all in scope, and a vegetarian formulation can still fail on any of them.

We are already halal certified in Canada. Is that enough?

Only if your certifier is recognised by the destination authority for your product category. Recognition lists are specific and they change. That is the first thing to check, because if the answer is no, everything downstream (audit, artwork, launch date) moves.

Can you issue the certificate?

No. We are not a certification body and we do not audit. We establish which body you need, prepare you for their audit, and manage the process. The certificate comes from the certifier, and any consultant who tells you they can guarantee one is telling you something they cannot deliver.

How long does certification take?

It depends on the certifier’s audit calendar and on how complete your ingredient documentation is when you start, and we will not quote a number we cannot source. The part you control is the documentation, and it is the usual cause of delay.

Service

Halal Certification Management

Halal is not one standard and not one certificate. Malaysia and Indonesia each run their own system, and each accepts certificates only from its own list of approved certifiers. A certificate from a body that is not on the list does not work at that border, however good your audit was. Canadian producers pay for the wrong one regularly, and find out months later when a buyer asks who certified them.

What’s included

Confirmation of which certifying bodies the destination actually recognises, checked against the authority list rather than the certifier’s own claim
Review of any halal certification you already hold, and whether it is accepted where you are going
Scoping of what has to be covered: products, production lines, ingredients and their own certification status
Preparation for the audit, including the ingredient and supplier documentation that is usually the bottleneck
Coordination with the certifying body through to certificate issue
What has to happen at renewal, and what triggers a re-audit rather than a renewal

Who else you will need

These sit next to this engagement and we do not do them. They are licensed or credentialed work, and we would do them worse than the people who do them all day. We will introduce you, and coordinate across them so nothing falls in a gap.

Issuing the halal certificate, and the audit itself: A certifying body whose accreditation the destination recognises. We confirm which ones qualify for your market and prepare you for their audit; we are not a certifier and could not be one.

Commercial terms

Fee range: Scoped per engagement
Typical timeline: Confirmed at scoping

Questions

Our product is vegetarian. Do we still need halal certification?: Usually yes, if the destination requires it for the category. The requirement attaches to the product and the market, not to whether the recipe contains meat. Processing aids, carriers, enzymes, alcohol used as a solvent and shared production lines are all in scope, and a vegetarian formulation can still fail on any of them.
We are already halal certified in Canada. Is that enough?: Only if your certifier is recognised by the destination authority for your product category. Recognition lists are specific and they change. That is the first thing to check, because if the answer is no, everything downstream (audit, artwork, launch date) moves.
Can you issue the certificate?: No. We are not a certification body and we do not audit. We establish which body you need, prepare you for their audit, and manage the process. The certificate comes from the certifier, and any consultant who tells you they can guarantee one is telling you something they cannot deliver.
How long does certification take?: It depends on the certifier’s audit calendar and on how complete your ingredient documentation is when you start, and we will not quote a number we cannot source. The part you control is the documentation, and it is the usual cause of delay.

Read before you brief us

The reasoning behind this work, written out in full and free to read. You will brief us better for having read it, and you may decide you do not need us for part of it.

Twelve Canadian products we believe could travel well
A shortlist, with the tariff position under each one. Some are obvious and priced accordingly. The interesting ones are where a high general rate meets a preference, because that is where an agreement does commercial work rather than paperwork.
Why Canadian oats belong in premium Asian breakfast brands
Vietnam charges nothing on raw oats and 15 per cent on rolled ones. CPTPP takes the rolled line to free, which is what makes it possible to export the branded product rather than the raw grain and hand the milling margin to somebody in-market.
Canadian ingredients for functional beverages
Frozen wild blueberries face 30 per cent into Vietnam at the general rate and nothing under CPTPP. Whey protein and lactose are already free there. For a formulator building a drink, that is the difference between a Canadian ingredient and a substitute.
Which Canadian halal certifiers Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore actually recognise
Four Canadian bodies appear on at least one of the three recognition lists. Only one appears on all three. A producer holding the wrong certificate has a valid certificate and no market, and the gap is invisible until a consignment is stopped.
Halal for Malaysia and Indonesia: two markets, two recognised lists
A halal certificate is only worth what the destination recognises. Which Canadian certifiers Malaysia and Indonesia each accept, why the lists differ, and why the CFIA will not settle the question for you.

Markets this covers

Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore