Pork free restaurants: Halal knowledge of the operators

Abstract

Holding the status of multi religious and multi ethnic country, a new Islamic image known as Pork Free restaurants is rapidly emerging, especially in the large cities of Malaysia. The issue whether this Pork free restaurant is serving Halal food is one of the central issues in Malaysia, particularly among the Muslim customers. This paper thus reports the qualitative results looking at the knowledge of pork free restaurant operators with regard to halal food. From the information received, the Pork Free restaurants are basically one of the marketing tools to promote and attract the Muslim customers. The understanding of Halal varies among pork free restaurateurs and in some the Halal status is still in doubt. With no intention to pinpoint, there are still inefficient and inappropriate mechanisms with regard to Halal issues in the restaurant sector undertaken by the appointed religious authorities.