(Marketingmagazine.com.my) – By: Malati Siniah
Popular for their golden brown pretzels, global fast food chain Auntie Anne’s which is locally owned by Chrisna Jenio Sdn Bhd has recently come into the spotlight when their halal certification by the Department of Islamic Development (Jakim) was denied for several reasons, including a request to rename their “pretzel dog” product.
In light of the news which broke yesterday, Auntie Anne’s quality assurance and halal executive Farhatul Kamilah posted on her personal Facebook page the reasons why her application was rejected by JAKIM.
The statement which carried the technical issues as to why they didn’t get the certification and the steps they were taking moving forward has been shared over 7,500 times on Facebook. So far comments have been positive with users stating that the statement gave a good explanation on the situation.
On Auntie Anne’s official Facebook page, however, there have been few parties who have been posting the queries on the brand’s Halal certification. These comments, however, appeared to be unanswered.
MARKETING spoke to Farhatul today morning who shared that the statement released on her Facebook page was the main update on the situation.
On JAKIM’s request on the name change of the “pretzel dog” product, Farhatul shared that they have given two new name options for the food items, which she could not disclose yet.
When asked if they were planning to kick off any campaigns to smoothen the situation, Farhatul shared that it was not in the pipeline at the moment.
“Right now our main focus is to get the Halal certifications for all 45 of our outlets. We are pooling all our resources right now to achieve that” she shared.
It was recently reported in Free Malaysia Today (FMT) that The Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (Fomca) said that ‘restaurateurs and food producers should avoid certain words, including “beer” and “dog” in their menu as it would confuse Muslims’.
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