Content area
Full text
Introduction
Halal has emerged as one of the prominent brands in recent ages (Wilson and Liu, 2010). There is a strong demand for Halal food products in a number of non-Muslim countries (Ben-Berry, 2008; Anonymous, 2011; Ben-berry, 2011) which has emerged as a niche market (Euromonitor International, 2010a). This, world’s fastest growing Halal food market (Ben-berry, 2011), is due to two reasons: first, Halal food is considered as cleaner, healthier and tastier (Alam and Sayuti, 2011); and second, due to the tremendous acceptance of Halal within the global population through the process of acculturation and assimilation. Halal has been cited as the benchmark for safety and quality assurance by Alam and Sayuti (2011) and Fischer (2010). One of other contributing factor is changing local food tastes due to global tourism and reverse colonization.
The demand for Halal products has increased in many non-Muslim countries (Ben-Berry, 2008; Bonne and Verbeke, 2008a, b; Ben-berry, 2011; Lever and Miele, 2012). As per some estimates there is three trillion Halal market annually (Administrator, 2007, 2010; Ayyub and Bilal, 2011). To meet this demand, global giant companies are introducing Halal products. Almost all the big companies including McDonald’s, KFC, Dominos, Subways, HSBC and many others have started offering Halal products and services (Bergeaud-Blackler, 2006; Grocer, 2007). This demand is not only due to Muslim population; rather it is also increasing among non-Muslims across Europe (see e.g. Campbell et al., 2010; Lever and Maria, 2010; Qatawneh, 2010; Ayyub et al., 2013). It is evident from the fact that non-Muslim customers, in western countries, are seen in large numbers and often in curry restaurants and other Halal traditional restaurants/take aways (Schlegelmilch and Khan, 2012).
In the UK, Muslims make around 5 per cent of the population and consume Halal products, that’s why many superstores have started their Halal offerings (Ahmed, 2008). This leads to an important market fact that non-Muslims not only come across Halal offerings in these mainstream supermarkets but also show/develop a particular behaviour towards these Halal products and services. Though, the consumer behaviour is being affected by many factors, out of these, religion is considered an important one (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2009; Al-Hyari et al., 2012). Religion is considered a central cultural factor that has a major...