Portugal’s halal food sector is diversifying, and there are high hopes of Muslim tourists returning en masse as the pandemic eases. The $1.16 million 'Halal Market 2020-22' project between Portugal’s Alentejo and Spain’s Andalusia regions aims to boost tourism-related halal sales.

The food halal market for Portugal, a largely Christian country that was in the early Middle Ages part of the Muslim world, has been expanding, serving a growing local Muslim community and Muslim tourists keen to taste Portuguese food.

Between 711 and 1249, most of Portugal was under Muslim rule, which influenced its language and culture. In the country’s 2011 census, 20,640 residents declared they were Muslims (in a voluntary question on religious identity). And Portuguese Muslim leaders believes there are approximately 60,000 to 70,000 co-religionists in the country. The recent growth in numbers is more due to immigration from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, augmenting earlier communities of Muslims from former Portuguese colonies.

This population is increasingly being offered halal food that, five years ago, was uncommon, expensive and rarely available in restaurants, an academic study for Lisbon business school the Instituto Superior de Gestão has shown.

Today, Muslim consumers are offered more certified halal foods, there are more products available in shops and more restaurants serving halal dishes nationwide. Major retailers, such as Makro, have been importing halal food and selling halal meat, the Halal Institute of Portugal (HIP) director Sheikh Azhar Vali told Salaam Gateway.

The HIP certifies halal products, and has so far approved about 2,000 lines from 80 Portuguese companies, mainly suppliers of baked goods (including pastry), dairy lines, canned food and vegetables. Usually, Portuguese halal food companies certify their products to export, noted Vali.

The HIP also certifies food supplements, medicines pans, corks, paper pulp, packaging and cosmetics, and it is assessing a possible halal logistics certification system.

Adil Karim, manager at the Talho Halal da Margem Sul, a butcher based near the capital Lisbon, said demand for halal meat has been growing, “mainly for hotels and restaurants, and even aviation” for airliners flying to Muslim countries and Europe. Compared to 10 years ago, sales grow about “30 to 50%” because there are more Muslim immigrants. Growth was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but this year there has been a slow recovery in sales, although “nothing like in 2018 or 2019”, he added.

When Karim started to work at this already established butcher in 2008, there was no entity certifying products, but he was able to verify whether halal procedures had been followed in producing meat sold by his store and consumers trusted him because he is a Sheikh. Nowadays, there are halal butchers in cities across Portugal and new products. “About 15 years ago, it was almost unthinkable to have halal turkey or any kind of delicatessen,” he recalled. So, he looked for factories whose owners were willing to cooperate in making typical Portuguese products using halal methods. Nowadays, Portugal exports halal meat “in considerable quantity”, he underlined, although official sales data has yet to be compiled.

Muslim majority countries have been targeted as new strategic markets by Portuguese halal food producers, said report ‘Internationalization strategy of the agri-food sector – 2019-2021’. Portuguese food industry sales promoter PortugalFoods noted that, for instance, in 2012-2017, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were in the top 10 of milk, dairy products, eggs, and honey exports for Portuguese exporters (the products were not necessarily halal).

Manuel Ramirez, administrator at Portuguese canned fish major Ramirez, said his company started to certify and sell halal products in 2013 to “above all, respond to requests from the Portuguese Islamic community”, but later to boost exports too. Currently, out of 70 Ramirez canned fish products, 52 are certified. Even during the pandemic, the Portuguese company, which sells products across Europe through its online store, has grown halal sales. And as the company moved to a post-pandemic situation, Ramirez believes that efforts to sell to “markets that prefer halal food” will deliver “in the short-term, an accelerated growth.” Ramirez is confident, especially, in more sales to “markets such as Dubai”, a key market. In Europe, France is Ramirez’s main export market for halal lines such as tuna fillets in olive oil and Portuguese cod in olive oil and garlic.

As for Portugal’s tourist-based halal market, it also has been growing. While visitors are not asked about their religion, based on five countries where more than 99% of citizens are Muslims, nearby Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, along with Saudi Arabia and Iran, alone accounted for 57,124 leisure and business travel visitors in 2019, up from 51,319 in 2017, said a government agency.

Moroccan tourists were the most numerous within this group. And with Portugal strategically located between the rest of Europe, where there are 44 million Muslims, and North Africa, with 200 million, even though tourist numbers (from these five countries) fell 70% in 2020, they are expected to recover as the pandemic ends.

This trade has prompted a project called ‘Halal Market’ between Portugal’s south-central Alentejo region and southern Spain’s Andalusia. This $1.16 million project 2020-22 aims to boost tourism-related halal sales and is mostly funded by the European Union and Portugal’s Business Association of Baixo Alentejo and Litoral (NERBE/AEBAL - Associação Empresarial do Baixo Alentejo e Litoral); the Spain-based cross-Mediterranean Three Cultures Foundation (promoting Islamic, Jewish and Christian cultures); Spanish wholesaler the Central Supply Markets of Córdoba and the Intermunicipal Community of Baixo Alentejo.

This includes promoting halal food made in Portugal and Spain. João Coelho, the management assistant at NERBE/AEBAL, told Salaam Gateway this Halal Market group wants to “sensitise companies” in Portugal and Spain to get a halal certificate, persuading them that this is a business opportunity. The project is focused on Muslim millennials, who are a “very interesting market niche that is increasingly generating value”, Coelho added. The Halal Market supporters are developing and promoting tourist micro-routes linked to halal-certified businesses or companies with a ‘Muslim-friendly’ card, who meet halal requirements but lack certification.

Charles Veave, a food technologist at the Portugal-based consultant Top Certifier, predicted “an increased number of halal products will attract more tourists” from Muslim countries to Portugal.

To the HIP’s Vali, Portugal offers “good conditions” to attract more tourists, but investments in halal menus and advertising is needed. The HIP is also helping some public schools to serve halal food, which will open another niche.

From such comparatively modest beginnings, the Portugal halal food market and industry are already growing and offer great promise for the future.

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