Hi All,
Thanks for your interest in this thread. One member of our Community @lucky.lee.anne.mc has started an interesting point of discussion, which is food certification. In particular, some have expressed their concern about the cost in particular of Halal Certification and do not wish their money to contribute to a religious group.
As other Community members have pointed out, Halal Certification is one of many certification bodies that range in purpose from religious to dietary, and these typically come at a cost to the business. Read our article on credence claims for more information . Halal Certification has been around for about 50 years and the Department of Agriculture manages approval.
Businesses choose to become certified as it improves consumer confidence in a product and can increase sales. Since we’re talking about Vegemite, around one out of every 30 jars of Vegemite sold is exported, according to an article in the Brisbane Times. Around 22 million jars of Vegemite are sold every year, and the estimated 0.01 cent added per jar of Vegemite is greatly offset by economies of scale provided by better access to other markets. In short, Vegemite would likely cost more for everyone if the company were to decide to stop competing in these markets.
More broadly, most commentators (including from across the political spectrum) agree that failing to compete in foreign markets would also be detrimental to Australian employment, especially farmers who are often the most dependent on foreign markets.
However, for some, it’s not about the size of the contribution, but that there is a contribution at all. Unfortunately for those with that viewpoint, if you drive a car that uses oil, or use products delivered by machines that use oil (planes, ships), or oil-derived products like plastic, then this contributes far more financially (PDF) to countries with religious practices that some do not wish to support then Halal certification schemes, even using the highest estimates (by multiplying the total number of food companies with the average cost of certification, I arrived at 14.3 million).
That comment is not intended to diminish consumer choice though. A recent senate enquiry has made recommendations to improve food certification practices for those consumers that want better control of this aspect. Perhaps there will be one ‘super logo’ in the form of a QR code that lists all considerations for all consumers?
I’d also like to remind users of our Community standards. This is a place for civilised debate and meaningful conversations. If you have a topic you’d like to debate, please provide evidence to support your arguments. Any personal attacks, derogatory statements or aggressive behaviour is unwelcome and repeat offenders will be removed from the forum.
In addition, this is a consumer forum for discussing consumer issues. While we allow some comment in other interest areas where they intersect with consumer issues, if you’d like to debate politics or religion it would be better if you found another forum or social media site to discuss these issues there. Any further comments intended solely to debate these unrelated issues will be removed for being off-topic. Finally, for any further comments related to Halal certification and terrorism, please contact the Australian Federal Police with your evidence and report a crime. I’m sure we can agree that terrorism is a serious claim, and making these claims without evidence makes it much harder for the people fighting terrorism to identify real threats.
