I can safely say that now we heard the word 'halal supply chain' so much often recently. In talks, webinars, academic papers, news article, the word 'Halal supply chain' is becoming more popular and became a catchphrase for denoting a unbreaking continuum of halal integrity within a supply chain. But, do we really know what exactly halal supply chain is? Is it really achievable? And the most important question is, which direction are we talking about when it comes to 'halal supply chain? These questions are actually came through my mind when extracting as much as possible in order to understand the topic, and...to really really wanted to know the true meaning of it. This is because, the complexity of supply chain itself. It interwinds with multiple spectrum of activities and concepts. Since the questions (my upbringing) regarding this matter is too colourful, I will break down the points into these smaller chunks:
What is - Halal Supply Chain?
Well, I will pouring down all the details here, since there are hundreds or even thousands of writings on defining what halal supply chain really is. Some of the writers sticks to the definition of 'the pure' supply chain then incorporates to define Halal Supply Chain, in which includes the words: ...to fulfill and satisfy the customer (you can find this in many mainstream supply chain textbook). Of course, when we talking about supply chain, it cannot be separate from business management in which profit is the main goal, and this can be achieved only with our happy customer. Some of them views that Halal Supply Chain (I will further use HSC in short), as a process, and others viewed as the approach. Regardless of the difference, we can still reconcile in which, insofar the definition of HSC will includes the word of 'halal integrity' and, 'from farm-to-fork' (the most popular catchphrase) or simply from raw materials to the end consumer. And this also true if you referring to the Malaysian Standard as well, the MS2400 series. I consider myself as minimalist, therefore it is simpler to say that HSC is to maintain the halal status from the start to the end. Sounds easy right? But is it? It is fascinating to imagine that every processes in producing a product is following the halal standard, and actually, yes, this is the ideal, but I would like to question, is it really achievable in the real application? Don't get me wrong, I am all supporting everything that is good and progressive for halal cause, but I just wanted to see how the theory would fit in to the reality - reality check. Before I try to conclude the answer, lets just see how the emergence of HSC helps maturates the halal knowledge itself, and I can tell you its pretty amazing.
Throughout the academic journey of myself, before learning about HSC, I incline to see halal certification more focusing on the product, or product oriented. This is my initial worldview that I developed, since we took detail consideration on the product itself: the ingredients, the raw materials, and the processing aids. In fact, since I have some knowledge in biotechnology , my interest is always on the compounds such as the DNA, protein, fat and alcohol - these are the foundation of halal scientific (or some say halal science). I even started to learn about halal, thanks to Consumer Association Penang (CAP) (please not to confuse with PPIM...hehe) published the 'legend' book, Halal dan Haram dalam makanan, yes, with the green cover page that exposed some of shadowy ingredients used in daily food products. That's my starting point, and developed further on based on the interest. Even before the advent of 'halal executive program', I enrolled in Halal Professional Analyst Program (PHAP) organised by HDC, USIM and TPM-Biotech before JAKIM introduce the halal executive program as the requirement for halal certification. Again, here I learned about halal forensics, which analyses the four compounds I have mentioned earlier, utilizing laboratory equipment to verify. So, that's embolden my worldview towards 'halal epistemology'.
In 2021, I was lucky to join Dr Marco Tieman's seminar conducted by UMHRC (Bravo to UMHRC!). If you did not recognize this name, you probably not reading much enough in HSC fields. You're not doing it right! This is because Dr Marco Tieman published many academic writing on HSC. (Don't get me wrong again, I am not saying that Dr MT is the only expert on this, but credit should goes to him since he is one of the early academics who wrote about HSC conceptual framework). But anyway, the things that I wanted to share here is that, after joined the Seminar (Halal Supply Chain Workshop) for 3 series, now I realized that keeping halal integrity is not enough if we rely on the product itself. Yes, it is important as for the raw mat, ingredients needs to be halal and toyyib (safe, clean, hygienic) but other aspect - the tangible and intangible aspects: the way of handling, the way of storing and transporting, all other things of surrounding parameters needs also to be conforming with the notion of halal. It is no longer product oriented business, but supply chain-oriented. It involves ALL activities that goes to the product until it reaches the hand of a happy customer.
HSC: Which direction for HSC?
After learning many materials on HSC and comparing with the courses that runs by experienced industry figures, what I can say is that many learning experience are heavily relied and too much narrowed down in terms of standard compliance. Again, I would like highlight pretty clear here, that it is important to learn about the Standards, it is compulsory since it is the 'kitab kuning' in terms of Malaysia Halal Certification point-of-view. Its a requirement, therefore it is profound to learn based on that. However, we can see that now, halal supply chain (industry per se) are having multiple challenges which is so much significant that this discipline can be upgraded to touch more on the real industry. I think at this point we now should make a paradigm shift to look HSC as NOT ONLY for the compliance, but also in terms of its resilience. Resiliency of HSC would determine the sustainability and survival of halal industry and this could be directly impact things like food security, not just food safety! This also would so much contribution to the knowledge that if we can correlate HSC with both the higher objective of Islam (the Maqasid) as well as the hierarchy of needs. Hehe, well that's will be on another episode...by the way, thanks for reading.
Selamat hari raya Aidilfitri 2022M
Afiqhalal
