A halal logo on a packet asks you to trust whoever put it there. Most shoppers stop at that point, reasonably, because there is only so much checking anyone can do in a supermarket. But for readers who want to go one step further, there is a question behind the logo that has a real, public answer: who checks the certifier?
Halal accreditation is the layer above certification. A certification body audits factories and issues the halal mark; an accreditation body audits the certification body itself, against published standards such as GSO 2055-2 and OIC/SMIIC 2. Separately, national authorities like JAKIM and MUIS decide which foreign certifiers they recognise for their markets.
Those three roles are often blurred together, and pulling them apart is what makes a certifier’s credentials readable.
Certifier, accreditor, recogniser
It helps to picture three layers, each checking the one below it.
The certification body is the organisation whose mark appears on the product. It reviews ingredients, audits facilities and decides whether a product can carry its logo. Our guide to what a certifier checks before approving a product covers that work in detail.
The accreditation body does not certify food at all. It audits certification bodies to confirm they are competent, impartial and working to a defined standard, and then accredits them for a stated scope.
The recognising authority is a national halal body that decides which foreign certifiers’ certificates it will accept for products entering its market. Recognition is a trade and religious-authority decision, not the same thing as accreditation, and a certifier can hold one without the other.
The standards an accreditor audits against
Accreditation only means something if the rules are written down, and in the halal sector they are.
The GCC Accreditation Center, GAC, states that it accredits halal certification bodies according to GSO 2055-2:2021, “Halal products, Part 2: General Requirements for Halal Certification Bodies”, together with its own accreditation requirements and the requirements of the International Halal Accreditation Forum, IHAF.
The Emirates International Accreditation Centre, EIAC, accredits halal certification bodies to the UAE and Gulf versions of GSO 2055-2:2021 and to OIC/SMIIC 2:2019, “Conformity Assessment, Requirements for Bodies Providing Halal Certification”.
That second standard comes from SMIIC, the Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries, which also publishes the standard one level up. OIC/SMIIC 3:2019 sets the requirements for halal accreditation bodies that accredit halal conformity assessment bodies: in other words, it is the rulebook for the accreditors themselves. Our overview of halal certification marks introduces SMIIC and the GSO series as the standards layer underneath the logos.
Outside the halal-specific standards, accreditors also draw on the general international standard for product certification bodies, ISO/IEC 17065. When the ANSI National Accreditation Board, ANAB, accredited IFANCA in 2020, it announced the accreditation as being in accordance with ISO/IEC 17065 and the pertinent halal certification scheme requirements defined by IHAF.
What one certifier’s credentials look like
A worked example makes the layers concrete. IFANCA, the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America, publishes its credentials on an accreditations and recognitions page, and it separates them into exactly the two lists described above.
Under “Accredited by”, it names ANAB, BPJPH (Indonesia’s Halal Product Assurance Organizing Agency), EIAC, GAC, HAK (the Halal Accreditation Agency) and PNAC (the Pakistan National Accreditation Council). Under “Recognized by”, it names bodies including JAKIM in Malaysia, MUIS in Singapore, SASO and the SFDA in Saudi Arabia, and CICOT in Thailand.
That is a certifier telling you who audits it and which markets accept its mark. Not every certifier publishes this so clearly, and a certifier that serves only a local market may have neither, which does not by itself make its mark meaningless. It does mean that the checking behind it is harder for an outsider to see. For the US picture specifically, our post on halal certification in the USA explains why credible US certifiers derive their standing from accreditation and foreign recognition rather than from any government certificate.
How recognition works in practice
Recognition schemes are run by national authorities for their own markets, and their published rules show what they are for. MUIS, Singapore’s Islamic Religious Council, explains that because it does not certify food manufactured overseas, the responsibility for certifying halal products imported into Singapore lies with the foreign halal certification bodies it recognises. It recognises them based on their ability to implement halal standards that align with the Singapore MUIS Halal Standards, and publishes a list of recognised bodies.
So a certifier’s recognition by MUIS tells you something specific: that its certificates are accepted for products entering Singapore. It reflects MUIS’s own assessment of the certifier’s standards. It is not a statement about every product the certifier approves, and it says nothing about a certifier that has never applied.
How to check a certifier yourself
If a mark on a pack is unfamiliar, three checks take a few minutes.
First, look the certifier up by name and find whether it publishes its accreditations and recognitions, as IFANCA does. Second, check at least one accreditor’s own register rather than the certifier’s claim. GAC publishes an “Accredited Bodies” directory that can be filtered by type, including halal product certification, and by status, including suspended, withdrawn and expired accreditations as well as current ones. That status filter is the useful part, because it lets you check whether an accreditation is current rather than taking a logo’s claim at face value. Third, if you care about a particular country’s standard, check that country’s recognised-body list, such as the one MUIS publishes.
None of this replaces the judgment of your own scholar about which standards you follow. Accreditation tells you that a certifier is competently doing what it says it does. It does not tell you whether its position on questions such as machine slaughter matches yours, which is why the certifier’s own published standard still matters. Our piece on halal turkey shows how much those positions can differ between accredited, well-established bodies.
Where a scanner fits
Zabihah reads printed ingredient lists and gives AI-assisted general guidance from them. It is not a fatwa and not a substitute for certification, and it cannot audit a facility, verify slaughter, or confirm a certifier’s accreditation status on your behalf. For a certified product, the certifier, the registers that stand behind it, and your own scholar or certifying body are the deciding voices.
Sources
- GCC Accreditation Center: Accreditation of Halal Certification Bodies
- GCC Accreditation Center: Accredited Bodies directory
- EIAC: Halal Conformity Assessment Bodies
- SMIIC: OIC/SMIIC 2, Requirements for Bodies Providing Halal Certification
- SMIIC: OIC/SMIIC 3:2019, Requirements for Halal Accreditation Bodies
- ANAB accredits IFANCA to certify halal products
- IFANCA: Accreditations and Recognitions
- MUIS: Foreign Halal Certification Bodies (FHCB)