The Knowledge to Decide

Halal food is estimated to be a USD415 billion global market. Leon Perera, CEO of Spire Research and Consulting shared his views with news portal Salaam Gateway on the factors that will continue to drive this growth in 2017. The global market for halal-certified food in 2015 was estimated at USD415 billion in the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2016/17 by Thomson Reuters and Dinar Standard. There is a growing demand for Shariah-compliant food products across the entire value chain, including storage and transportation. Perera remarked that this being driven by a growing Muslim middle class, rising Muslim tourism and aggressive Halal food export promotion programs by some countries. Perera added that Spire was seeing a trend of government agencies seeking to promote tourism and the Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) sector from Muslim majority countries by stimulating their domestic Halal food-service sector. https://www.spireres

Post-harvest losses amount to 10% in India – where the percentage might be higher for fruits and vegetables. To help, US-based impact investment firm, Creation Investments Capital Management led a USD15 million investment through private equity in Sohan Lal Commodity Management (SLCM), an Indian agricultural logistics firm in September 2015. SLCM’s technology platform known as Agri Reach offers protection and storage services for agricultural commodities to farmers, stakeholders, traders as well as importers and exporters involved in the trade. This is achieved through a vast network spread across 17 cold storages and 760 warehouses in India. It further claims to reduce post-harvest losses down to 0.5% with this technology. With global expansion on the line, SLCM offered procurement solutions and warehouse management in Myanmar (in 2014). The African market is also under their radar. Is agricultural infrastructure set to improve in India? https://www.spireresearc