Abstract: “This paper aims to provide explanations on issues and challenges faced by Malaysian food industry in Halal implementations. Halal food is no longer considered solely as a religious requirement for the Muslims, but also sought by non-Muslim community because of cleanliness, safety and hygiene issue. Food business practitioners faced various kinds of issues and challenges in order to implement the Halal concept in their daily operations. This conceptual paper will outline the issues and challenges from various perspectives; authority, awareness, consumer perception, cost, market competitiveness, and supply chain management to help business practitioners and others in the food industry to understand the current issues. Further studies are suggested to analyze the problems and figure out the solution for the current problems.”

Keywords: Halal, concept, Halal, implementation, Islamic dietary, issues, challenges