MIDDLE EAST - Expo Center Shajah is to hold an exhibition to educate the Muslim community on ensuring the food they consume is genuinely halal.
Halal Middle East will be held at Expo Center Sharjah on 16-18 December 2013, including Halal Expo and Halal Congress Middle East.
A spokesman for the event said back-to-back local, and international, cases of halal food contamination have created a need for general consumers to be aware of halal rules and regulations.
In recent weeks, the issue of food contamination has received extensive press coverage in the UK, where the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has been informed by the Ministry of Justice that meat pies and pastries supplied to prisons in England and Wales were labelled and served as halal but contained traces of pork DNA.
This follows a wider national scandal that horsemeat has been found in processed beef products on sale at supermarket chains including Tesco.
In the UAE, there have been reports that restaurants in five-star hotels are using the same kitchen equipment on halal and pork products. And in the US, a global fast food chain and one of its franchise owners have agreed to pay US$700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law.
Director-general of Expo Centre Sharjah, Saif Mohammed Al Midfa, stressed the role of the Halal Middle East trade fair and congress in educating the Muslim community on how to ensure that what they are consuming is genuinely halal.
“Such instances of food contamination and mis-selling are worrying and at the same time unacceptable to any Muslim irrespective of the country or region,” he said. “Such incidents would have offended and distressed a large number of Muslims across the world. Several times such instances are reported even when there are clear regulations for food establishments to abide by while handling and selling pork products.”
Al Midfa said consumers need to be aware of the “halal norms” governing the system for preparing and serving food products. These include how animals are slaughtered, labelled, stored, refrigerated, cooked and served.
The UAE is well positioned for an event on halal food. The Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) is working on unified standards for halal food and cosmetics, which, once approved, will be introduced in all Islamic countries in the near future.
Expo Centre Sharjah is organising several exhibitions in Qatar through a partnership with the Qatar National Convention Centre and Qatar Expo.
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