Seoul, South Korea – On the Malaysia Worldwide Halal Showcase final September, an unlikely sight caught the eye of many attendees.
Nestled among the many cubicles from Muslim-majority international locations akin to Indonesia and Kuwait, a kiosk representing pork-loving, hard-drinking South Korea beckoned guests to take a look at halal merchandise starting from seaweed laver to sanitary pads.
“The halal meals market is a blue ocean with nice potential for development,” Lee Yong Jik, the pinnacle of the meals export division at South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture, Meals and Rural Affairs, informed Al Jazeera.
After taking the worlds of movie, TV and pop music by storm, South Korea is setting its sights on the worldwide halal trade, which caters to the dietary guidelines and life-style necessities of some 1.8 billion Muslims around the globe.
Halal is just not simply related to historically homogenous South Korea, the place the Muslim neighborhood is estimated to quantity fewer than 200,000 folks, or lower than 0.4 p.c of the inhabitants.
However surging demand for Korean delicacies and snacks in Southeast Asia, the place Korean popular culture has a faithful and rising fanbase, has turned Korean exporters onto a doubtlessly profitable alternative.
Muslims’ spending on halal meals alone reached $1.27 trillion in 2021 and is projected to achieve $1.67 trillion by 2025, based on analysis agency DinarStandard.
South Korea’s authorities has been eager to encourage companies to capitalise on the pattern, offering help starting from meals ingredient evaluation to subsidies for certification charges and promotional occasions to attach consumers and suppliers.
In 2015, then-President Park Geun-hye signed an settlement with the United Arab Emirates to advertise companies in new markets, together with halal meals.
In Daegu, South Korea’s fourth-largest metropolis, native authorities have spearheaded a “Halal Meals Activation Undertaking” aimed toward growing the variety of halal-certified firms within the metropolis tenfold and tripling exports to $200m by 2028.
Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo not too long ago described the halal market as a chance that “can’t be ignored”.
Lotte Meals, CJ CheilJedang, Daesang and Nongshim are among the many Korean meals giants to have rolled out halal-certified merchandise from kimchi to rice muffins.
Final 12 months, South Korea started exporting halal Korean native beef, often known as hanwoo, for the primary time after receiving the go-ahead from Islamic affairs officers in Malaysia.
Samyang Meals, certainly one of South Korea’s main meals producers, exports halal merchandise to 78 international locations, together with its wildly in style “Buldak Ramen” prompt noodles.
Samyang’s gross sales of halal merchandise reached $200m in 2022, accounting for about 45 p.c of complete exports. Gross sales in 2023 have been anticipated to achieve about $270m.
Samyang has “persistently recognised the significance of the Muslim market” and has been actively working to advertise “Ok-food” globally, an organization spokesperson informed Al Jazeera.
Other than the meals trade, gamers within the so-called “Ok-beauty” sector have additionally cashed in on the pattern.
Cosmetics producer Cosmax, which has its headquarters in Seoul, has been producing halal merchandise at its services in Indonesia since 2016.
Regardless of the rising market, gaining halal certification can appear daunting for a lot of companies, particularly smaller companies.
“Step one is to find out in case your product is halal and whether it is, then assess whether or not you really need halal certification,” Saifullah Jo, chairman of the Korea Halal Affiliation (KOHAS), informed Al Jazeera.
A South Korean nationwide who transformed to Islam, Jo based an Islamic consultancy agency for Korean firms and has translated a ebook about halal into Korean.
“Simply because an organization requests certification, doesn’t imply we’ll grant it. Some folks come to us searching for certification for issues that will technically be certifiable however it’s not all the time sensible,” mentioned Jo, whose organisation is certainly one of South Korea’s 4 halal certification our bodies.
“We have to contemplate the viewers and the real necessity for certification.”
Whereas alcohol, blood, pork and animals not correctly slaughtered within the title of God, and meat from animals that died earlier than slaughter, are thought-about haram, or prohibited, even seemingly innocuous objects like rice and mineral water will be candidates for halal certification.
“The complexities come up within the manufacturing processes. For instance, when rice is separated from husks within the milling course of, the equipment concerned might utilise lubrication and a few oils might include animal-derived components,” Jo mentioned.
“This causes cross-contamination and presents a problem for guaranteeing the ultimate product is halal-compliant.”
To make issues extra difficult, Indonesia, residence to the world’s largest Muslim inhabitants, final 12 months introduced that meals firms would from October be required to acquire halal certification throughout the nation.
In November, the South Korean and Indonesian governments reached an settlement to exempt agricultural and meals merchandise from certification within the Southeast Asian nation as long as they’ve acquired the halal label from two of South Korea’s certifiers.
Whereas South Korea has made no secret of its ambitions to forge enterprise connections with the Muslim world, social attitudes in the direction of Muslim folks and Islamic tradition are sometimes not so pleasant.
“Muslims in South Korea are seen at finest with apathy and, at worst, with worry,” Farrah Sheikh, an assistant professor at Keimyung College who specialises in Islam in South Korea, informed Al Jazeera.
Sheikh mentioned some Koreans view halal merchandise as a conduit for Islam to “invade” Korean society.
In Daegu, the place officers are aggressively pursuing the Muslim market, plans to assemble a small mosque have encountered fierce opposition from residents and conservative Christian teams.
In August final 12 months, rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council expressed “critical concern” to the South Korean authorities over its alleged failure to deal with the marketing campaign in opposition to the mosque, which included the show of pig heads exterior the development web site and banners describing Islam as “an evil faith that kills folks”.
After the federal government started selling the halal trade in 2015, a number of Christian teams started warning concerning the potential “Islamification” of South Korea, an alleged inflow of Muslims and issues about safety dangers related to halal meals, main the federal government to difficulty an explanatory doc to dispel misinformation and rumours.
In 2016, the proposed development of an industrial zone for the manufacturing of halal-certified merchandise within the western metropolis of Iksan fell by means of as a consequence of opposition from Christian teams.
That very same 12 months, a model of potato chip made in Malaysia attracted controversy over halal certification on its packaging, which was later eliminated with out clarification.
In 2018, South Korea witnessed a wave of protests in opposition to the arrival of a number of hundred Muslim asylum seekers from Yemen. Throughout the identical 12 months, plans for a prayer room on the Winter Olympic Video games have been cancelled, following vehement protests by anti-Muslim campaigners.
For Muslims really dwelling in South Korea, halal merchandise will be tough to search out.
Whereas there are eating places providing halal meals, they’re primarily clustered in Seoul and different giant cities with substantial Muslim communities.
With little in the best way of halal merchandise out there on grocery store cabinets, some Muslim residents have resorted to re-importing halal-certified “made in Korea” prompt noodles for his or her consumption.
Requested concerning the lack of halal merchandise in South Korea, Samyang Meals mentioned there was inadequate home demand to help a market at current.
“Nevertheless, because the variety of Muslim guests and residents in Korea will increase, curiosity in halal merchandise is rising. Samyang Meals can be reviewing the marketability of promoting halal merchandise within the Korean market to make it extra handy for home Muslim shoppers to buy halal merchandise,” a spokesperson mentioned.
Sheikh, the Keimyung College professor, mentioned Korean firms couldn’t be blamed for eager to money in on a profitable market.
“Nevertheless, after we see Korean attitudes in the direction of Muslim refugees, or as we now have seen in Daegu, we now have a transparent discrepancy and an enormous social downside,” he mentioned, including that South Korea should enhance its perspective in the direction of Muslims if it desires to raised goal markets abroad.
Saifullah Jo of KOHAS mentioned he sees a vibrant future for Korea’s halal trade regardless of the challenges.
“ it from the Korean trade’s standpoint, we’re conscious of the potential, and we should always transfer swiftly. Certainly one of Korea’s key strengths is its capability to adapt quickly,” he mentioned, including {that a} rising halal market may promote tolerance and understanding.
“Regardless of some damaging minds, we’re considering positively about going into this new market, and Koreans are studying as properly. It helps us open up culturally.”
