Halal logos, signs allowed on food labels

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

An executive at a meat producer in the Aegean province of Afyon poses in this file photo. Turkish firms are allowed use the Islamic ‘halal’ signs on their products. Hürriyet photo

Halal food producers are now allowed to use halal logos and signs to label their products, said Deputy Undersecretary Nihat Pakdil of the Food and Agriculture Ministry at a meeting organized by the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD), according to a press release from the association.

Pakdil said that those food producers who have received international quality certificates and halal food certification from the Turkish Standards Institution (TSE) will be allowed to use related logos and symbols on product labels thanks to a new regulation on halal food labeling.

Pakdil went on to say that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered that the lowering of the rate of value added tax (VAT) on food products. The VAT rate on wholesale food products is 1 percent, but for retail food products the rate is 8 percent, which results in illicit food production, Pakdil said.

Turkey’s Organized Agro-Industrial Zones will be transferred from the authority of the Industry Ministry to that of the Agriculture Ministry, Pakdil said.