You are checking a certificate, or the body that issued it. That is the right thing to do. Here are the facts, and the three questions that let you judge any Halal certification body.
If you have landed on this page, you are probably checking something. Perhaps a certificate on your desk. Perhaps the name of a body that your Italian supplier has just mentioned to you. You are right to check: a Halal certificate is only worth as much as the chain of responsibility behind it. This page is designed so that you can judge for yourself, without having to take our word for it.
HQC — Halal Quality Control — has been certifying since 1983. It is the longest European experience in this field, and this is not an argument of seniority: it means that we saw the birth of the standards we apply today, certified producers through three generations of regulations, and learned to distinguish what is a religious requirement from what is administrative habit.
HQC Italia is the Rome branch of Halal Quality Control. Our auditors travel to factories, slaughterhouses and warehouses, and speak the language of the people they audit — English, Italian, French, Arabic.
This is the most important point on this page. What matters for exporting is that the body issuing the certificate is recognised by the authority of the destination country: SFDA and SASO in Saudi Arabia, EIAC and GAC in the Gulf, MUI and BPJPH in Indonesia, JAKIM in Malaysia.
The difference with an unrecognised body is not cosmetic. An unrecognised body can issue a document that looks like a certificate, bears a logo and reassures the sales department. But on the day the container arrives at customs in Jeddah or Jakarta, what is checked is not the appearance of the document: it is the recognition of the issuing body by the authority of the importing country. If it is not recognised, the goods do not get through.
| Market | Recognising authority |
|---|---|
| Saudi Arabia | SFDA, SASO |
| United Arab Emirates and the Gulf | EIAC, GAC |
| Indonesia | MUI, BPJPH |
| Malaysia | JAKIM |
| Singapore | MUIS |
| Thailand | CICOT |
Our certificates are accepted in more than 50 Muslim countries.
It needs to be said clearly, because this is what really distinguishes a serious body from a supplier of logos. The Halal status of a product is not a box to tick: it is a religious requirement that engages the conscience of millions of consumers, and it rests on verifiable facts — the origin of each ingredient, the qualification of the person who performs the slaughter, the invocation pronounced, the absence of contamination along the chain.
We consider that our job is to protect this trust, not to circumvent it. That is why our auditors go on site, observe the slaughter instead of reading a declaration, and refuse to certify what they have not been able to verify. A refusal costs a client in the short term; a lenient certification costs the credibility of the whole system.
A body that only knows the texts makes its clients lose months. A factory has real constraints: shared lines, changing suppliers, seasonal campaigns, commercial deadlines. Our auditors assess conformity with these realities in mind: the requirements are the same for everyone, but they can be met in more than one way.
This is the ground we have worked on for forty years: where justified, the standards allow production sequencing with validated cleaning instead of a dedicated line; the document review flags critical ingredients at an early stage; and the scope of certification is defined by the company, which may certify only the products actually intended for export rather than its entire catalogue.
Halal traceability has become a data issue as much as a doctrinal one. We manage certification files on a dedicated digital platform: each company follows the progress of its file, uploads its technical data sheets, and consults audit reports and surveillance deadlines. Ingredient analyses and the verification of supply chains are supported by digital tools, which shortens the longest stage of the process: the document review.
A question about the validity of a certificate, yours or a supplier's? Write to us: the check is free of charge.
Is HQC Italia a reliable body?
Is an HQC certificate accepted at customs?
What is the difference with an unrecognised body?
Do your auditors really go on site?
Which languages do you speak?
HQC Italia - Halal Quality Control
Viale Giorgio Ribotta, 11
00144 Rome (RM), Italy
Tel. +39 338 965 2911
📧 anis.youssef@halaloffice.com
🌐 www.hqcitalia.com
Made in Italy. Halal Certified. Our team replies in English, Italian, French and Arabic.
Technical notes: HQC Italia operates in accordance with the international standards OIC/SMIIC 1:2019, OIC/SMIIC 2:2019, OIC/SMIIC 4:2018, GSO 2055-1:2015, GSO 2055-2:2021, UAE.S 2055-1:2015, UAE.S 2055-2:2016, MS 1500:2019 and BPJPH Decree 78/2023.