GSO 2055-1 Halal Food - Part 1: General Requirements

The GCC Standardization Organization (GSO) is a regional organization composed of national standardization bodies of the GCC member countries. This organization publishes gulf standards and technical regulations through specialized technical committees. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GGC) is a political and economic alliance of the following countries in the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The standard “GSO 2055-1 Halal food - Part 1: General requirements” published by GSO describes the general requirements for halal food that must be complied with at each stage of the chain. This standard covers food products for halal food products, including receipt, preparation, packaging, labels and descriptive data. It also covers the processes of handling, transportation, distribution, storage, display and service of halal food.

For the purposes of this standard, the following terms and definitions apply:

• Halal food refers to food and beverages that are consumed by eating, drinking, injecting or inhaling in accordance with halal requirements.
• Slaughtering according to Islamic rules refers to the slaughtering that is carried out in accordance with the halal requirements in Islamic law as specified in the Gulf countries standard.
• Halal certification refers to the document that certifies that the products, services or systems specified herein comply with the halal requirements in Islamic law. These are halal labeling and certificates for businesses, farms, slaughterhouses and facilities classified as halal, and certificates for the components of primary products and materials. Additives and components and derivatives including meat derivatives and their extracts, rennet, gelatin, animal fats and oils and their derivatives are certified in this way.
• Modified foods refer to foods obtained through the process of gene transfer between foods and beverages that contain genetically modified products or secondary ingredients. It covers changes made to the DNA of living species and food using genetic modification technology.
• Food additives are any substance, whether or not of nutritional value, that is not normally consumed as food in itself or is not normally used as an ingredient of food. These substances are substances that are intentionally added to foods for technical purposes (including organic purposes) during production and that arise or are expected to arise as a result of their addition. The preparation, processing, packaging, transportation or preservation of these foods (directly or indirectly) or their by-products have an element of, or an effect on, their properties.
• Halal certification bodies refer to organizations that are accredited by halal certification authorities to issue halal certificates.

In this standard, the general requirements for halal food certification are explained as follows:

• All foods, their derivatives, products, parts and extracts are subject to the provisions of Islamic rules in terms of permission or prohibition according to the annex of this standard.
• Procedures derived from Islamic rules must be followed at all stages of the food chain for halal food products, including receiving, preparation, packaging, labeling, transportation, distribution, storage, display and halal food service.
• All food additives and raw materials used in the production of halal food must be free from any non-halal components. This must be supported by legal official documentation describing their ingredients, including packaging materials.
• All halal foods must be free of any toxic substances and hazardous contaminants that could be considered harmful to health.
• All halal foods must be free from any impurity contamination prohibited by Islamic rules.
• All non-halal products must be completely separated from halal products throughout the food chain to ensure they are differentiated and not mixed with each other or contaminated with others.
• Official authorities may take all necessary procedures to verify the compliance of products with the specific requirements of halal products and may take appropriate procedures in accordance with other local legal regulations.
• In the production of meat or its products, the health requirements specified in this standard must be complied with.
• Animal slaughter requirements must be strictly followed in accordance with the Islamic rules stated in this standard.
• The general health requirements of foods specified in this standard must be complied with.
• All devices, tools, production lines and related materials used in the preparation of halal food must be clean and not made from or contain non-halal materials.
• When converting any device, tool or production line that has been in contact with or used non-halal food, it must be cleaned according to general cleaning rules to completely eliminate all traces of non-halal products. The transition from a non-halal process to a halal process should not be repeated continuously.
• When cleaning or maintaining machines or devices that come into contact with halal foods, no detergent liquid, grease, oil or fat containing non-halal components or materials should be used.

In this standard, packaging materials for halal food certification are described as follows:

• Packaging materials must be free from any non-halal material.
• Packaging materials should not be prepared or produced by equipment contaminated with non-halal materials during preparation, storage or transportation. They should be physically separated from other non-halal materials.
• Packaging materials should not contain any materials considered hazardous to human health.

For Halal certification, all sales, distribution and supply facilities of products must meet the following requirements:

• It should only deal with halal products that meet the halal food provisions specified in this standard.
• The tools, equipment and utensils used during the service, processing and sale of halal food products must be completely separate from those used for non-halal foods.
• If a facility or service location usually deals with non-halal products but plans to switch to halal production, it must go through a cleaning process in accordance with Islamic rules before starting halal production.
• It is not allowed to serve non-halal food and beverages in the same place.

All halal foods stored, displayed or transported must be separated into separate categories and labelled as halal to avoid mixing with non-halal products. Appropriate means of transport must be used to avoid mixing with non-halal products.

According to this standard, the requirements for labeling for certification are also determined. Accordingly, without prejudice to the GSO standard, the label must contain the following information:

• Name and type of product.
• A list of content that clearly reflects exemption from all prohibitions of the rules. The actual sources of content must be clearly and explicitly announced.
• Products containing oils, fats, meat derivatives or extracts such as gelatin or rennet must declare their source.
• Food products containing GMOs must be declared.
• If the halal slogan is to be placed on the label, the requirements of this standard must be complied with.
• The requirements of the standard regarding the labels of slaughtered animals and their products must be complied with.
• The conformity of food additives to this standard must be declared as necessary.
• All fish with scales, shrimp and fish roe with scales and by-products should be appropriately labeled as “fish with scales.” All other aquatic animals and their by-products should be clearly labeled as “fish without scales,” as appropriate.

Animals that will not be certified halal according to this standard include:

• Animals that are prohibited to be slaughtered according to Islamic rules
• Animals slaughtered by people other than polytheists, atheists, secularists, atheists, Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews
• Dead animals, drowned animals
• Animals fatally beaten
• Fallen animals
• Animals eaten by predators
• Animals slaughtered without mentioning the name of Allah
• Animals slaughtered on idols
• Animals that are not slaughtered in the way of Allah
• Animals that are forbidden to be eaten or contaminated with animals

Among the numerous testing, measurement, analysis and evaluation studies that our organization has carried out for businesses in various sectors, it also provides certification and testing services defined in the “GSO 2055-1 Halal food - Part 1: General requirements” standard with its trained and expert staff and advanced technological equipment.