Halal inspection process at federal and state level: A case study of Halal Certification system in Malaysia

The increase rate of the world's Muslim population has affected the trend of the global halal industry. This situation leads to the increase demand for food, products and services with the Halal Certification (HC) status. HC is a process of examining and evaluating products or services that comply with halal requirement in accordance to Shariah law. Products and services with the HC status will help the consumer to make consumption decision easily. In Malaysia, HC system is governed by Halal Certification Body (HCB) at federal and state level. HC consists of several processes and one of the important processes is Halal Inspection (HI). This paper aims to identify the problem in HI and determine the differences in the implementation of HI practices by HCB between state and federal level. A qualitative approach has been employed which involves interviews with five halal experts. They are the auditors from HCB at federal and state level. This study adapts the Work System Framework (WSF) to gain understanding of the HI process. The results reveal that the limited number of halal auditors may contribute to HC inefficiency. Although both HCB follow the same HC guidelines and manual, the HI implementation is slightly different. On top of that, the HC scheme that is available at federal and state level are also different. In future, these findings will help to extent the research on the use of Information Technology (IT) such as virtual technology in the HI process.