Fairtrade and Halal Food Certification and Labeling: Commercial Lessons and Religious Limitations

Drawing upon the successes and criticisms of Fairtrade certification and labeling systems, this article considers how such successes may be replicated within Halal food supply chains. While the advantages of a trusted labeling system are evident, the highly complicated nature of Halal food production, driven by the heterogeneous religious requirements of its consumers, conspires to make the development of such a system both costly and impractical. Adopting Hunt's (1981) concept of macromarketing and Layton's (2007) definition of a marketing system, the article builds a conceptual model of the Halal food labeling marketing system. It presents a comparative analysis of the Fairtrade and Halal systems that can be viewed as push- and pull- driven respectively, and proffers suggestions for future research around the influence of consumer religiosity upon food production systems.