World noodle producers agree to 'halal' status

World noodle producers agree to 'halal' status

By Riyadi

NUSA DUA, Bali (JP): The world's major noodle producers ended their two-day summit here on Friday, endorsing PT Indofood Sukses Makmur's proposal to include Islamic halal dietary laws in the new international standards for noodles.

The producers grouped in the International Ramen Manufacturers Association (IRMA) agreed to submit the proposal to the Rome- based Codex Alimentarius, a U.N. body that sets global food product standards, by the end of this year

"The summit agreed with the proposal of PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk to have the element halal included in the Codex draft in order to comply with the requirements of countries with an Islamic majority, and Islamic countries in particular," they said in a joint statement called the Bali Declaration.

The newly-installed director general of IRMA, Eva Riyanti Hutapea, who is also president of Indofood, said if Codex accepted the proposal, international noodle producers wanting to sell their noodles in Indonesia or in other Islamic countries would have to have a halal label on their products.

Halal certification would allow inspectors from groups such as the Indonesian Ulemas Association to make random tests of the products to ensure they conform to Islamic regulations.

The acceptance of the halal term in the draft international standards for noodles should give Muslims peace of mind in making food choices.

Eva said she would soon form a task force to draft the Indonesian version of international standards for noodles which would include a halal clause. The task force would be headed by F.G. Winarno, former president of Codex.

Winarno, a lecturer at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said the halal clause in the new international standards for noodles had to conform with Codex's global guidelines on the use of the term halal in any food products issued in December, 1998.

"The basic idea of Codex's guidelines on the use of the term halal is that they must be on a voluntarily basis, and never be mandatory," he said.

Besides the halal clause, Winarno said the new international standards for noodles would set standards for raw materials, food additives (i.e. alkalis, antioxidants, colors, preservatives), hygiene standards, packaging and labeling.

He said such recognized international standards were necessary to protect consumers so that there would be no more issues such as "instant noodles could negatively affect the development of human brains."

Koki Ando of Food Nissin Products Co Ltd of Japan said such standards would protect not only consumers but also producers because only through meeting high standards of safety and health would their food products be accepted by consumers.

Although currently there were no international standards for noodles, Ando said, instant noodles all over the world followed strict standards of food production in their respective countries, he said.

"Otherwise, they would be abandoned by consumers," he said.

In addition to the standards, IRMA members from nine countries participating in the summit were also committed to expanding global instant noodle consumption from 43.4 billion packs or servings in 1997 to 100 billion by 2010.

Expanding instant noodle production was necessary not only to boost producers' profitability but also to safeguard food availability for the common people, said the inventor of instant noodle, Momofuku Ando.

Therefore, he said, instant noodles have to be cheap and affordable for the common people.

The producers said in the declaration that instant noodles should continue to serve as an important alternative in tackling food shortages or even food crises.

"As a processed food, ramen (noodle) counts among those that most effectively retain the original calorific value of the wheat from which it is made, making it a food that will be valuable as part of any solution to a food crisis," the declaration said.

IRMA on Friday night symbolically donated 2.5 million packs of instant noodles worth around Rp 1 billion (US$110 million) to the Indonesian people in need through the Indonesian government.

The noodles would be produced by local noodle firms under a special brand called Mi Peduli IRMA (IRMA Care Noodle).