Standard or non-standard?

Azerbaijan from today will apply the quality standards of compliance with food products HALAL (for food products that comply with Sharia law). The State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patents has plans of monitoring in this regard.

    According to the press service of the State Committee, the monitoring will cover the manufacture, sale and export of food products. The main thing is a certificate and production technology for the new standard.

    In accordance with the law, the detection of violations of individuals will be fined by 1.5 thousand - two thousand manat, and legal entities – by 4-5 thousand manat. There are three state standards of HALAL. They are AZS 372-2012 Standards for HALAL meat. General requirements for the production, transportation, storage and sale, AZS 386-2012 (CAC / GL 24-2012) General rules for the use of the term HALAL and AZS 731-2012 (OIC/SMIIC1: 2011) Food HALAL - general requirements.

    For clarification, we turned to the experts. According to Sanan Karimov, the former chief technologist of bakery industry and the Institute of Standards of AR, the quality standards of production are not related to Azerbaijan. In Azerbaijan, food processing companies do not have provision of quality control or a laboratory. The standards will be only observed after the connection to the international system of NASSR (a systematic preventive approach to food and pharmaceutical safety that defines the physical, allergic, chemical and biological parameters of risk in the production process, and provides for measures to reduce these risks to a safe level).

    "In Azerbaijan, the production of meat products with the brand HALAL is issued by two companies - SAB (Baku) and Halal Gida (Gyanja). In 2010, we along with them were in Turkey at a conference on the preparation of the mentioned Islamic standards. Our manufacturers openly (not for the press) indicated that we do not have the technology, in which it would be possible to produce sausages without the addition of pork fat or organic synthetic equivalents," said the expert. In addition, in his opinion, we cannot call HALAL (permitted by religion) products, in the manufacture of which the dealers steal components, which are too long stored in warehouses and cold storage cells in violation of other procedures.

    "Azerbaijan has formally adopted an official standard called HALAL, but it is not supported by software technology. The word HALAL written on the packaging of meat products is a trademark that does not have to do with the standard. The countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference are still arguing about the order of slaughter, the corresponding canons of Shariah, and our state committee is already "ahead of" the accepted standard and has threatened to punish the disobedient," ironically said the expert.

    According to the "chief cook of the country", General Director of the Center of Azerbaijan

National Culinary Tahir Amiraslanov, at the purchase price of beef within 7 manats a kilo (recently in the western economic region they have established new wholesale price - 8 manat - Editorial Turan) sausage cannot cost from 4 to 6.5 manat per kilo. If the manufacturer puts the HALAL trademark on the market sausage, it should cost respectively. The consumer should not be deceived, he said.

    And finally there is a question for the zealots of religious canons. Assume that the production of sausages and other meat products by the trademark holders is without pork, forbidden by Islam to eat. And what should we think about dyes, food additives, artificial fats, emulsifiers, and other products sometimes dangerous to health? Are they allowed by the religion? -17A-