Halal Food: A Market Waiting to Be Tapped Into?

THE GUARDIAN: Halal meat accounts for up to 15% of meat sales in the UK yet the options for Muslim foodies, or 'haloodies', are limited. Can a new food festival change that?

For the Oxford dictionary, a foodie is a person "with a particular interest in food; a gourmet". Collins goes for "having an enthusiastic interest in the preparation and consumption of good food". Imran Kausar fits both, but with qualifications: he won't touch alcohol, can't eat pork or pork products or byproducts, and must avoid blood, most carnivorous animals, the meat of animals not slaughtered according to certain rules, or any food contaminated with the above.

Kausar, Glasgow-born of Pakistani parents, is a halal foodie. It's a group of people now so numerous and, he believes, so poorly served that he and his friend Noman Khawaja have not only coined a new term to describe them – "Haloodies" – but organised a festival for them: London's first, and the world's largest, Halal food festival, which takes place at the capital's Excel Centre this weekend and confidently expects to draw 20,000 paying visitors.

"There's a huge market out there, waiting to be tapped," he says. A medical doctor by training who has also worked in investment banking and the pharmaceutical industry, he sees himself as typical of a new generation of young, middle-class Muslim consumers now contributing to a growing demand for high quality and varied halal food.

"Our parents came over in the 60s and basically put up with what there was," he says. "Now there are many people like me: well educated, good jobs, decent incomes ... and we want things. I want to go out with friends – with non-Muslim friends, too – and with my family of course, and be able to eat halal French, Japanese, Thai, pizza, like everyone else. Michelin-starred food, if I want, why not? Read on and comment » | Jon Henley | Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Move Over Organic – The New Big Business in Food Is Halal

THE INDEPENDENT: This week's Halal Food Festival is attracting interest among a growing group of foodies beyond the Muslim community

Their culinary buzzword is provenance; they know their Jamie from their Nigella; and they have the spare cash to splash on eating out, if they could only find the right restaurants. The catch is that any meat they eat must be halal, on either religious or taste grounds.

Meet the Haloodies, a growing group of food lovers who are bored of curries, fed up with kebabs, and long for nothing more exotic than a shepherd's pie. Their increasing spending power has sparked a race among retailers, wholesalers and canny restaurateurs to carve out a chunk of a market that is worth about £420bn globally.

This week an estimated 20,000 Haloodies will congregate in east London at the Halal Food Festival, the world's first gastronomic celebration of halal produce. All of the UK's major supermarket chains are sending scouts to help them find ways to exploit the trend. Attendees can browse food stalls offering anything from hot dogs and sushi to French and Moroccan dishes without worrying how the meat was killed or even transported.

Imran Kausar, a doctor by training, who masterminded the festival, said British Muslims were no longer "economic migrants trying to make do [but] affluent and aspirational members of the middle class [who wanted to] expand their culinary horizon." He added: "While typical British dishes have got more exotic, Muslims want the reverse. We want regular stuff like shepherd's pie, which we see everywhere but we can't try." Read on and comment » | Susie Mesure | Sunday, September 22, 2013