First international Halal logo on Colgate packaging soon

Kuala Lumpur: The first international Malaysian halal logo issued by Halal Industry Development Corp Sdn Bhd (HDC) will be placed on Colgate-Palmolive's toothpaste and mouthwash packaging.

"Over the next few months, this much-coveted logo will be placed on our toothpaste and mouthwash packaging," said its marketing director, John Hazlin, at a press conference here Tuesday.

Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Ltd, which produced the toothpaste and mouthwash, is the first company to get the halal certification from HDC.

The production is for the South-East Asian markets including Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore.

Until recently, only locally-manufactured products were eligible to receive the Malaysian halal logo.

On April 17, 2008, HDC was entrusted by the government to issue the Malaysian halal logo for all products produced domestically or internationally.

Previously, Colgate toothpaste was certified halal by foreign bodies recognised by Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (JAKIM).

The official presentation of the certificate to Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Ltd was held Monday at the gala dinner of World Halal Forum 2008.

Colgate-Palmolive's head of regulatory affairs for Greater Asia division and halal committee chairwoman, Hamidah Minhaj, said the HDC audit was conducted according to international audit standard.

"It includes full checks of Colgate's own Good Manufacturing Practices and Safety Standards and with full compliance to the Malaysian halal standards," she said.

Colgate-Palmolive Sdn Bhd is a subsidiary of the Colgate-Palmolive Co, a US13.8 bilion (US$1=RM3.20) global company.

Meanwhile, HDC's chief executive officer, Datuk Jamil Bidin, said HDC has undertaken the process to certify and confirm Colgate-Palmolive's products being halal in less than the time prescribed of 30 working days.

"We hope we can keep this process going because as far as HDC is concerned, we would like to provide an efficient service to industry players to facilitate them in getting the necessary certification.

"We understand how the industry players operate because time is critical for them. In order to facilitate the certification process we have to do it within the time frame," he said. Jamil said HDC would not compromise on certification requirement despite the speed it took.

"We followed the MS 1500 that JAKIM has been using all this while and in fact we would like to take this standard to higher level so that we will also meet the requirements of some other international protocol," he said.

He said this was important as multinational companies' products go global. - Bernama