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Fratini's Restaurant in Gadong has become one of the first restaurants in a batch of 10 to be awarded the Brunei Halal certificate via ha Management Services, a local halal certification consultancy affiliated with the government.

"Fratini's is the first one, out of the 10 that had been approved in the first batch," said Latip Ghariff, director of ha Management Services.

The new consultancy was created by Ghariff and retired colleagues from the Ministry of Religious Affairs to speed up the process involved for a restaurant seeking the Brunei halal certificate stamp.

As an intermediary body, ha Management said that more than 10 restaurants, not including their branches, are now in the process of getting the Brunei Halal certification from the Ministry of Religious Affairs via the consultancy.

The consultancy is also in the process of facilitating the halal certification for a locally made product amongst other ventures.

"We've also been approached by a company who wants to produce canned foods, but we have a very limited manpower at the moment and it's a company that started with a zero start-up cost, so it's a success for these people (working at ha Management). These people are professionals in their own fields. It's not for money," he said.

The charges to help facilitate the Brunei Halal Certification processes depend on the establishment, said Latip, with a minimum fee of $1,500 and depends on the menu of the establishment.

"If the menu is a lot, where auditing has to be done for each one of the ingredients, it takes longer," he said.

Latip agreed with recent comments from a government official that using halal-certified ingredients could speed up the certification process.

"Yes, if the ingredients are halal certified, either from Malaysia, Singapore or wherever, then when the inspection and auditing is done it's a lot easier. If they are not in the list, what we normally do is recommend (them) to go for the alternatives which are already on the list for halal (ingredients)," he said.

Latip said that the list of ingredients could be easily obtained saying, "It is always available, it's so easy to get. (If) you look at any shop or supermarket in town, all those displays in the halal area, they are already acceptable right?" But, there are certain restaurants who would prefer to have a niche by using a secret recipe and so may not be as forthcoming with disclosing their ingredients fully. "That is the problem, because if they opt for that then it needs to be checked and then the checking of the ingredients will take time, so if it's already on the list of halal (ingredients) then it will be faster."

If a particular ingredient is not on the list however and the establishment insists on using it in their product or menu item, then ha Management will again recommend the restaurant to use one that is similar and is already certified.

The consultancy will not however be able to help with sourcing suppliers, he added, as there are already a number of wholesalers in the country that restaurants would be familiar with.

When asked if there was potential for Brunei to venture into halal manufacturing of restaurants to sell overseas, Latip agreed, saying, "That would be the idea. I'm very sure some agencies in the government are very much looking into this, bringing in manufacturers to Brunei."

Manufacturing in Brunei would definitely be of interest to Brunei as this would lead to foreign direct investments and it would secure and guarantee the "halalness", he added.

The Brunei Times