Assalamu Alaikum

As the year winds to a close, I thought I would review some of our accomplishments this year.

For starters, with this fourth issue of Halal Consumer©, we will have distributed 120,000 copies of the magazine this year, all for free! If you didn’t get your copies in the mail or from an Islamic Center, subscribe on our website.

At the ISNA convention, we gave away thousands of samples of halal-certified products. Can you believe some conventioneers didn’t know that most Godiva® chocolates, Cabot® cheeses, ZonePerfect® nutrition bars, Wonderful® pistachios, Organic Valley® milk, Lawash bread, and Saffron Road™ crunchy chickpeas were halal-certified? They do now! We also unveiled the Crescent-M costume character.

Over the year, IFANCA food scientists conducted one thousand eight hundred plant inspections, reviewed over one million ingredients, and issued five thousand halal certificates for 100,000 products.

IFANCA made 15 presentations at international conferences discussing halal certification, animal welfare in Islam, and the impact of halal on the global economy.

The successful Halal and Healthy Workshop series, introduced in 2012 continued in 2014 with two workshops three more are scheduled for early 2015. These are fun, interactive events where attendees get to sample recipes made with halal-certified products while learning how foods are designed to be appealing.

The Sabeel Food Pantry, an IFANCA initiative, in collaboration with AMAL and IMAN, distributed 1,400 turkeys to families in need. In its fourteenth year, this was an increase of 280 turkeys from last year.

Also this year, IFANCA was selected to work with a prison system to help them implement a halal food service for their halal consuming population. We are also working with a University to help them implement a halal offering for their students.

Over the year we sponsored 25 events from local activities for Islamic schools and organizations to national organizations like Muslims in Dietetics and Nutrition (MIDAN) and American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP).

The majority of the products we certify are destined for Muslim lands abroad. Within the United States, only those companies that realize the power of the consumer have obtained halal certification. When you see the Crescent-M halal logo on a package, don’t hesitate to call or write the company to thank them for making the product halal.

In the upcoming year we expect to expand on these activities and introduce new ones. These are exciting times for halal consumers with more offerings and greater variety available. Please enjoy the magazine and be an engaged halal consumer.

Sincerely,

Muhammad Munir Chaudry, president