RUTHFULLY YOURS

MIDAMAR food company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been exporting halal products to Syria and other Middle Eastern countries for many years.  Its founder and head, Bill Aossey, who spent some of his post-coillege years in the Middle East, was listed as an active supporter of the PLO on PLO materials  in the early 1970s, and is the most visible leader of the sizable Muslim community in  Eastern Iowa, centered around the Mother Mosque in Cedar Rapids. For several years he has been making strenuous efforts to establish an international summer camp for Muslim teenagers and conference meeting hall on the nearby site of a former Girl Scout camp. The use of the site is determined by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Organisers of the two-day Halal Food and Services Exhibition, which will kick-off on March 30 in Paris (France) urged the Algerian producers of food processing to profit of opportunities offered by such an event to intensify their exports to Europe.

This exhibition, which brings together actors of Halal distribution, manufacturers and importers in France and in Europe, is a “must-attend event of exchanges among the different circuits,” Algerian Press Service (APS) cited official of organising agency of GL Events, Farid Terrache as saying here recently.

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Just weeks after a row erupted over a French fast-food chain selling halal burgers – or burgers prepared according to Islamic practices – a food fair featuring halal has opened in Paris this week.

The debate left a bitter aftertaste in a nation that has just spent the past few months engaged in a government-introduced “national identity debate” which raised more questions than it answered.

But in the food-stacked aisles of the halal section at Paris’s annual “Snack and Fast fooding Expo”, the controversy has been put into cold storage.

Halal food is still a niche market, but it’s a business that’s growing at a fast clip. Attracted by the industry’s impressive 15% annual growth rate, major food conglomerates are now competing with the companies that have traditionally dominated the sector.

Cedomir Nestorovic, a halal food market specialist and marketing professor at the Paris-based ESSEC business school, said “Ultimately, the market will surpass, by far, the organic sector.”

Related articles:
* France: Growing halal market
* France: 57% of Muslims regularly buy halal

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By Esther to Islam in Europe at 4/01/2010 03:05:00 PM