More restaurants in Canada are turning to halal certified meat on their menus to make sure items such as chicken are religiously compliant for some observant Muslims.
But the move isn’t just about faith — there’s a larger business opportunity at stake as companies try to access what’s been estimated as a $3.3 trillion global market that’s expanding due to increasing demand from both religious and secular sources.
Many Muslims believe eating food deemed halal is a religious obligation. Halal is an Arabic term, often translated to “permitted” or “allowed” in English. The designation isn’t just for food, but also cosmetics or financial products such as loans or investments. For meat to be certified halal, the animal must be killed in a way that meets religious guidelines.
A 2020 study indicated that the global market for halal foods was estimated to be growing at 20 per cent each year, specifically due to demand from both Muslim communities and non-Muslims who are looking for these products at both retailers and restaurants.
While there is no universal and regulated method of certifying a product as halal, according to the owners of Calgary-based fried chicken chain Cluck N Cleaver, the certification process can help them monitor the overall quality of the food once they’ve found a certification authority they trust or like.
It was a primary motivation for the chain to switch from conventional chicken suppliers to a halal-certified provider in 2020, said co-founder Francine Gomes.
“It was not based on a political stance or religious stance,” she said. “It was more about the quality of the food and the quality of the chicken.”
Gomes, who had previously worked in chicken farming herself, says she selected a halal provider whose slaughtering practices she could assess. Their requirement to regularly re-certify and explain how they handled the chicken from end to end gave her more confidence in the product, as well as making sure more items on the chain’s menu were accessible to potential Muslim customers.
“The prices are relatively the same as conventional chicken now, and it just allows us to reach a broader market, maintain our cultural diversity,” said Gomes.
“We want to be an inclusive business, so we think it’s a great value proposition.”
KFC apparently switches, receives backlash
Kentucky Fried Chicken recently gained some attention on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter, for apparently switching to halal chicken in many Ontario restaurants. Some of the criticism included seemingly Islamophobic calls to boycott the chain, accusing it of setting its menu to appeal to a minority of the Canadian population.
Neither KFC nor its parent company Yum! Brands responded to CBC News requests for comment.
Many outlets of fried chicken chain Popeye’s individually confirmed to CBC News that their chicken is halal, but neither Popeye’s nor its parent company replied to CBC News inquiries. Mary Brown’s chicken has also reportedly offered halal meat in some outlets, but parent company MBI Brands did not respond to requests for comment.
Casual dining chain Boston Pizza says it has offered halal options for around a decade in Canadian restaurants.
A halal designation makes no functional difference to non-observant consumers, according to Salima Jivraj, multicultural lead at Nourish Food Marketing and a halal consumer herself.
“It really is genuinely no different. The meat is exactly the same,” said Jivraj, who used to run a blog tracking restaurants that offered options that were religiously compliant.
She pointed out that a decade ago, it was much more difficult to find chicken — or anything else — that was halal.
“It wasn’t unheard of to actually go an hour’s drive to visit a new restaurant,” she said. “That was kind of the norm and it was a big deal. So availability was very scarce [10 years ago].”
Demand increasing as populations grow
That scarcity is no longer the case, in part due to manufacturers such as Maple Lodge Farms in Brampton, Ont. The company has offered halal meats for more than 30 years, and is a major player in the Canadian market for halal meats, primarily through its Zabiha Halal brand.
It told CBC News it has noticed a significant increase in demand — and not just from restaurants.
“Both restaurant and retail sales are growing in pace,” said Sarah Khetty, marketing director.
“We watch the retail market really closely. We know that it’s growing at double digits, year over year over the last seven years.”
A growing Muslim community in Canada is also increasing demand, according to Omar Subedar of the Halal Monitoring Authority, a certifying body in Toronto.
Statistics Canada has noted the Muslim population in Canada more than doubled from 2001 to 2021.
And while Subedar admits halal compliance can sometimes be more expensive because of potential costs for the certification process, he believes the service his organization offers is worth it.
“There’s a huge market to tap into. So by making these modifications, you’re going to now grab that market share,” he said.
For some Muslims, religious beliefs that restrict paying and receiving interest mean a traditional mortgage is off the table. To fill the gap, halal mortgages are hitting the Canadian housing market that are interest-free, but not without charges.
Restaurateurs like Gomes with Cluck N Cleaver have noticed that more companies seem to be heeding that advice, which offers her more choice.
“Some of the producers we used to use are now switching over to halal as well,” she said.