Indofood to seek 'halal' status for all noodles

JAKARTA (JP): PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, the world's largest noodle maker, said on Wednesday that it wanted the new international standards for noodles to stipulate that all noodles should be made respecting the Islamic halal dietary laws.

Indofood president Eva Riyanti Hutapea said the company would raise the proposal at the second world noodle summit, to be held in Bali on Feb. 11 and Feb. 12.

She said if Codex Alimentarius, the UN body that sets global food product standards, accepted the proposal of making halal certification compulsory, international noodle producers who want to sell their noodles in Indonesia would also have to have the halal label on their products.

Codex Alimentarius is currently drafting the international standards for noodles.

The halal certificate is awarded to food products that pass a series of laboratory tests based on Islamic principles.

Indonesia is the second largest noodle producer, after China.

Indonesian Food & Beverage Association's chairman Thomas Darmawan revealed that the country's instant noodles makers together produced about 8 billion packets of noodles in 1998, slightly lower than 8.6 billion packets recorded in 1997.

Eva said Indofood sold 7.5 billion packets of noodles in 1998, a 3.8 percent drop from the 7.8 billion packet sales recorded in 1997.

"The sales volume of our instant noodles declined last year because of the economic crisis and the rise of wheat prices in the domestic market," she said on the sidelines of a news conference on the instant noodle makers summit.

She pointed out that the price of wheat increased from Rp 800 (11.25 U.S. cents) per kilogram in January 1998 to Rp 3,000 per kilo at the end of the year.

She said the weaker purchasing power of Indonesians badly affected by the financial crisis had also dragged down the sales volume.

Looking ahead, Eva said the company expected no growth in sales volume in 1999 as Indonesians are still struggling to cope with the crisis.

"We expect zero growth in quantity terms this year but not in value," she said.

Eva, however, declined to give her prediction of the noodle sales value for 1999.

She said the average market price of instant noodles was currently between Rp 600 and Rp 700 per pack.

Indofood's former majority shareholder, the Salim Group, sold its 60 percent stake in the company to Japanese Nissin Food Products Co Ltd and Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co Ltd, changing the company status into a foreign investment firm.

Eva said recently that the 60 percent divestment program, which cost a total US$510 million, aimed, among other things, to increase the company's international distribution network amidst a dire domestic economic situation.

Nissin is one of Japan's leading food companies and a major instant noodle producer, while First Pacific, controlled by the Salim Group, has a wide range of interests, from marketing and distribution to telecommunications, finance and property.

Indofood and Nissin Food, along with about 100 world noodle producers, would participate in the world noodle summit in Bali.

Summit committee chairman Juan Permata Adoe said top executives and chief executive officers of the world's noodle producers would attend.

Other companies expected to attend are: Brazil's Nissin- Ajinomoto Alimentos Ltd, Switzerland Nestle SA and Philippines' Universal Robina Corp. (aly)