The halal certificate is not yet sufficiently recognized within the Croatian business community.

Halal certification creates new market opportunities, expands export potential, helps businesses reach new customers and enables them to broaden their business horizons in a variety of ways, said Ivan Šimić, CEO of Clarum; Jurica Protić, Director of Catering at Zvona usluge; and Rok Andlar, Chief Operating Officer of Gec Plešce in an interview with Poslovni FM.

Halal certification provides an equally valuable competitive advantage to businesses operating in an open market, the three representatives of different industries agreed. Clarum has been implementing halal requirements since 2008, initially to support exports to the German market and later to markets across Europe. In the future, the company hopes to expand its exports to the Middle East and Far East, Šimić explained. For a manufacturer of plastic packaging, halal certification represents a competitive advantage over other companies operating in the same field, Andlar pointed out. Protić added that Zvona Catering was among the first companies in the catering industry in Croatia to recognise the potential of halal certification. Since introducing halal standards, the company has experienced steady growth, Protić said in his conversation with Boris Živković, editor and host of the new and unique podcast Halal Business Info, produced by Poslovni FM for Croatia and the wider region. Listen to the full podcast below or download it for later listening.

Ahead of the HALAL BUSINESS FORUM, organised in partnership with the Centre for Halal Quality Certification, Poslovni FM presents inspiring stories and conversations with Croatian entrepreneurs whose halal certification has opened up new business opportunities.

Three Industries, Three Positive Experiences

– Clarum is a food company established in 1989. Its product portfolio is divided into three categories: dried, fresh and frozen pasta. Šimić explains that the company employs 80 people and generates annual revenues of approximately six million euros. It operates in 16 European markets, with exports accounting for slightly more than 50% of its total revenue.

– I am the third generation running the family-owned company Gec Plešce from Gorski Kotar, together with my two brothers. We manufacture polyethylene packaging, including plastic bags and plastic films. Gec employs 16 people and processes approximately 2,000 tonnes of material and finished products annually. In 2022, we invested heavily in modernisation, acquiring a significant amount of new equipment and developing new expertise. In 2023, we want to use the experience and energy of the third generation to take another major step forward after 53 years in business, Andlar emphasised.

– Zvona Catering has been operating since 1994 and is a family-owned company with 50 employees, currently managed by the second generation. Catering is our original and largest business segment. In addition, we operate closed-type restaurants within companies, providing meals for their employees, and last year we launched the N’oublie brand. It is a separate pastry and dessert brand, and at the beginning of March we are also opening our first pastry shop, with plans for further expansion. We are established in the Croatian market as one of the leading companies in our sector, and we have also operated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Austria, Protić revealed.

Šimić and Protić emphasised that their companies already met all the necessary requirements and held other relevant certifications, meaning that halal certification represented an additional layer built on top of their existing HACCP systems. The biggest challenge was finding halal-certified suppliers, Protić noted. Šimić added that even customers who have no religious reason to choose halal products often find them easier to select because halal certification provides an additional assurance of food safety and quality. He also pointed out that their products did not contain any haram, or prohibited, ingredients in the first place, so obtaining halal certification was not particularly complicated.

Andlar explained that polyethylene as a material already meets halal requirements and that there were therefore no particularly demanding additional requirements. Nevertheless, halal certification has been highly valuable to the company because it differentiates Gec Plešce from other plastic packaging manufacturers. This distinction has helped the company secure business partnerships, including with the Perutnina Group in Croatia and Slovenia.

Who Needs Halal Certification – Small or Large Businesses?

Everyone, the three interviewees agreed.

– Zvona Catering benefits from halal certification in several ways, and the financial benefit is only one of them, Protić said. Another advantage comes when presenting your company to potential customers and partners. Having halal certification demonstrates that you are a serious business that cares about its customers and clients as well as food safety. We have a two-year certification agreement that is renewed upon expiry, together with annual inspections, he explained.

– The same applies to plastics as it does to pasta when it comes to renewing certification. Whenever we have a new supplier or introduce a new input into the production process, we report it so that any changes in our production can be assessed and it can be confirmed that everything continues to meet the required standard, Andlar and Šimić explained.

While Andlar believes that halal is still discussed and understood far too little in Croatia, noting that the wider community is not sufficiently familiar with it and even recalling being asked whether the company had "converted to Islam", Šimić described a very different experience in the food industry, where halal certification and its benefits are well understood. Almost every major food producer has at least one halal-certified product, if not more, Šimić emphasised. He particularly highlighted the efforts of Aldin Dugonjić, Head of the Centre for Halal Quality Certification, and Aziz Hasanović, the current Grand Mufti of the Meshihat of the Islamic Community in Croatia, noting that their efforts have produced tangible results.

– The food industry understands what halal means; other parts of the economy may be less familiar with it. What I see as an opportunity, and where more work should be done, is halal tourism, where there is clearly significant potential to attract more international visitors, Šimić emphasised.

– I see the halal market as an accelerator of economic development, and I have to agree that it is not yet sufficiently recognised. Nevertheless, we have seen progress and an increase in the number of suppliers compared with the period when we first started. Generally speaking, we are a society that tends to miss opportunities because whenever things are going reasonably well, we become complacent. For example, how many halal-certified hotels and restaurants do we have in the tourism sector, while the global Muslim population continues to grow and an increasing number of Muslim travellers are willing and able to travel? Yes, halal certification is still insufficiently recognised within the business community, Protić said.

Asked about the business and entrepreneurial climate in Croatia, Andlar, Šimić and Protić agreed that Croatian entrepreneurship continues to move forward, as it has over the past 30 years, although progress often comes in small steps. To hear what else the Croatian entrepreneurs had to say in the podcast, particularly about the challenges of securing a workforce and how they are addressing them, listen to the full episode.

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