Halal certification in Sri Lanka: what it adds beside SLSI clearance

By the Silk Foods Ceylon Editorial Team

Sri Lanka’s halal-certified exports were estimated at USD 1.7 billion for 2023, with the top five OIC destination markets, Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, together worth USD 501 million of that total (Daily Mirror, 2024). For a Sri Lankan FMCG brand that already holds SLSI clearance on its retail SKUs, halal certification is often treated as an afterthought, something to add later if a buyer in the Gulf happens to ask for it.

That treatment misreads how the two credentials actually relate. Halal certification runs on its own track: its own certifying body, its own accreditation scheme, its own audit basis. It is not a rider on SLSI clearance and it does not replace it. The two tracks do overlap on paper, though, since both ultimately ask a manufacturer to prove what went into a product and where it came from. A brand with a tight traceability record already built for SLSI, BRCGS, or FSSC 22000 rarely starts a halal audit from zero.

What is halal certification in Sri Lanka?

A Sri Lankan buyer asking who certifies halal locally is really asking about one organisation. The Halal Assessment Council (HAC) has been the sole body certifying and auditing halal compliance in Sri Lanka since the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama’s own halal certification division stopped issuing certificates on 31 December 2013. HAC is accredited by the Gulf Cooperation Council Accreditation Centre against standards GSO 2055-2:2015 and ISO/IEC 17065:2012, and is recognised by JAKIM in Malaysia, MUI in Indonesia, ESMA in the United Arab Emirates, MUIS in Singapore, and CICOT in Thailand.

HAC’s own quality management system carries ISO 9001:2015 certification issued by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution, the same body that runs SLSI clearance. The two certifications sit on separate tracks for a manufacturer’s product, but the bodies behind them are not strangers to each other.

HAC certifies under a scheme limited to two sectors: the Product Sector (PS), which covers packaged and processed food manufacturing, and the Poultry Abattoir Sector (PAS), which covers slaughter operations. A contract manufacturer producing spice blends, herbal capsules, coconut products, or plant-based foods sits inside the Product Sector scope; SFC’s Matale facility runs no abattoir line, so PAS does not apply to its own operations.

Which product categories actually need it

Halal certification is not a blanket requirement across every SKU a Sri Lankan FMCG brand makes. It matters most where the finished product, or one of its inputs, carries a real question mark over compliance: a flavouring or extract with an alcohol-based carrier, a capsule shell made from gelatin rather than a plant-derived alternative, a seasoning blend built on an imported base with an undisclosed ingredient list, or any SKU sold into a retail environment where a buyer expects the halal mark on the shelf.

Spice blends, herbal capsule SKUs, and coconut products, the three categories that make up most of SFC’s own private-label catalogue, are usually closer to a halal-compliant baseline than a conventional meat or dairy line, since the recipe itself carries few animal-derived inputs to begin with. Capsule shells are the one line item worth checking twice: a vegetable HPMC shell clears the question outright, while a gelatin shell needs its own sourcing declaration before a halal audit will pass it.

Being close to the baseline is not the same as being certified. Halal certification verifies the supply chain, not just the recipe on paper, so a product with no animal-derived ingredient still needs the audit trail, the supplier declarations, and the segregation record before it can carry the mark.

What records a manufacturer keeps for halal certification

HAC’s certification process runs on what it calls a farm-to-fork audit: verifying every raw material back through the manufacturer’s supply chain, not just inspecting the finished product on the line. The council’s own certification team, which includes food technologists, checks that raw materials are free of dead animal extracts, poisonous or toxic substances, human-derived material, carnivorous-animal derivatives, blood, and insect or rodent contamination.

In practice, that means a manufacturer keeps a documented set of records for every certified SKU: a raw-material declaration from each supplier confirming the origin and processing method of every ingredient, a segregation record showing the halal-certified line has no cross-contact with any non-certified input, and a batch-level traceability log tying a finished product back to a specific production run and its sourcing paperwork.

Most of that record-keeping is not new to a manufacturer already audited under BRCGS and FSSC 22000 V6. The certification stack behind contract manufacturing at SFC already runs on supplier declarations and batch-level traceability; a halal audit asks largely the same documents, framed against a different exclusion list.

How does halal certification sit beside SLSI clearance?

SLSI clearance is the mandatory floor. Every packaged food sold on a Sri Lankan retail shelf needs it, under the framework set by the Sri Lanka Food Act No. 26 of 1980 and the Sri Lanka Standards Institution’s own certification scheme. Halal certification is voluntary. Nothing in Sri Lankan food law requires it, and a product can sell perfectly legally without it. The two credentials are not competing for the same shelf space; they are answering different questions for different buyers.

Dimension	SLSI clearance	Halal certification (HAC)
What it is	The national standards mark, certifying a product against Sri Lankan Standards under the Food Act framework	A halal management system certification under the GSO scheme, verifying supply chain compliance with halal requirements
Certifying body	Sri Lanka Standards Institution	Halal Assessment Council, GCC-accredited
Mandatory or voluntary	Mandatory for retail shelf listing	Voluntary, market-access and export credential
Audit basis	Product and process standard audit against Sri Lankan Standards	Farm-to-fork raw material and supply chain traceability audit
What it unlocks	Retail shelf and marketplace listing eligibility inside Sri Lanka	Trust signal for the local Muslim consumer segment, plus entry into OIC export markets

The overlap is in the paperwork, not the certificate itself. A manufacturer that already tracks supplier declarations and batch traceability for SLSI, BRCGS, and FSSC 22000 V6 is documenting most of what a halal audit checks; it just has not yet organised those records against HAC’s specific exclusion criteria and submitted them for review.

Certification snapshot: Silk Foods Ceylon, Matale BRCGS-audited FSSC 22000 V6 (covers the full processing scope including capsules, plant-based meats, retort lines, and spray-dried powders) USDA Organic and EU Organic (per-SKU) SLSI clearance on every retail SKU Sri Lanka Food Act 1980 compliance built into the engagement Department of Ayurveda registration on relevant capsule and kashaya SKUs Halal certification available per SKU brief, audited separately by the Halal Assessment Council (HAC)

What halal certification unlocks for a scaling FMCG brand

For a local FMCG brand already listed on a major supermarket chain’s shelf under SLSI clearance, halal certification does two things at once. Inside Sri Lanka, it is a trust signal to a consumer segment that actively checks for the mark before buying a packaged food product. Outside Sri Lanka, it is the entry credential for the OIC export markets that already account for a meaningful share of the country’s food trade.

In 2023, Sri Lanka’s halal-certified exports were estimated at USD 1.7 billion, and the Middle East destination markets, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia among them, posted roughly 20 per cent growth over the period (Newswire, 2024). For a brand still selling only inside Sri Lanka, that growth number is the practical argument for adding halal certification before an export buyer asks for it, rather than scrambling to certify a SKU after a Gulf order is already on the table.

The broader question of when contract manufacturing, private labelling, or co-packing fits a scaling brand’s next step is set out in this comparison, and a brand weighing an Ayurvedic-claim capsule line against the same certification question can compare notes against the Ayurvedic capsule certification path.

Where the certification workload actually adds up

Adding a fourth or fifth certification to a product’s paperwork sounds like it should multiply the compliance workload. In practice, the workload compounds mostly at the first certification, not at each one after it. A cellular-manufacturing facility already keeping batch-level traceability, supplier declarations, and segregation records for BRCGS, FSSC 22000 V6, and SLSI is not starting from a blank page when a halal audit is added; it is reorganising an existing record set against one more exclusion list.

SLSI clearance itself follows a defined submission path, walked through step by step in the SLSI submission guide, and the same traceability discipline carries over into herbal SKU registration under the Department of Ayurveda, covered in the kashaya and herbal SKU registration path.

A brand’s R&D team logs roughly the same set of first-brief questions on a certification-heavy SKU, whichever cert is being discussed: what is the ingredient origin, who supplied it, and can the batch be traced back to that supplier on demand. Once that answer is documented once, it answers the same question for SLSI, BRCGS, FSSC, and halal certification alike, which is the practical reason a facility with a tight cert stack can add halal certification in weeks rather than months.

Frequently asked questions

Who certifies halal in Sri Lanka?

The Halal Assessment Council (HAC) is the sole body certifying halal compliance in Sri Lanka, since the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama’s halal certification division stopped issuing certificates on 31 December 2013. HAC is accredited by the Gulf Cooperation Council Accreditation Centre and recognised by JAKIM, MUI, ESMA, MUIS, and CICOT.

Is halal certification mandatory for a Sri Lankan FMCG brand?

No. Halal certification is voluntary under Sri Lankan food law; SLSI clearance under the Sri Lanka Food Act No. 26 of 1980 is the mandatory requirement for a retail shelf listing. A brand can sell a fully SLSI-cleared product without halal certification; the certification adds a trust signal and an export credential rather than a legal requirement.

How is halal certification different from SLSI clearance?

SLSI clearance certifies a product against Sri Lankan Standards and is issued by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution; it is mandatory for retail listing. Halal certification verifies a product’s supply chain against halal requirements and is issued by the Halal Assessment Council under a GCC-accredited scheme; it is voluntary and targets the Muslim consumer segment and OIC export markets.

Can Silk Foods Ceylon produce halal-certified private-label SKUs for a local brand?

Silk Foods Ceylon (SFC) can support a halal certification brief on a private-label or contract-manufacturing SKU, drawing on the same supplier-declaration and batch-traceability records already maintained for the facility’s BRCGS- and FSSC 22000 V6-audited cert stack. SLSI submission support sits inside the standard engagement, with halal certification arranged separately through the Halal Assessment Council.

How Silk Foods Ceylon can help

For local FMCG brands shifting from in-house production to professional contract manufacturing, Silk Foods Ceylon (SFC) operates a 10,000 sq ft cellular-manufacturing facility in Matale with the line flexibility to run 50+ ready-to-go SKUs on a single BRCGS- and FSSC 22000 V6-audited cert stack. Capacity ranges across formats: 3,000 jars per day on semi-liquids, 2,500 x 200 ml bottles per day on beverages, 200,000 capsules per day, 15,000 patties per day, and 30,000 nuggets per day. The in-house R&D team works alongside production planning, which means a multi-SKU launch, including one built around a halal certification brief, can run in parallel rather than serial. SLSI submission support sits inside the standard engagement.

To brief a project, email b2b@esilkroute.com.lk or call +94 76 441 0389 / +94 76 918 5744.

Sources

HalalFocus, reporting that the Division for Halaal Certification under the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama stopped issuing halal certificates effective 31 December 2013, and that the Halal Assessment Council (HAC) continues certification in Sri Lanka. halalfocus.com (retrieved 31 August 2026).

Halal Assessment Council (HAC), About HAC, on its accreditation by the Gulf Cooperation Council Accreditation Centre against GSO 2055-2:2015 and ISO/IEC 17065:2012, its recognition by JAKIM, MUI, ESMA, MUIS and CICOT, and its own ISO 9001:2015 certification issued by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution. hac.lk (retrieved 31 August 2026).

Halal Assessment Council (HAC), Schemes & Requirement, on the Product Sector (PS) and Poultry Abattoir Sector (PAS) certification scope, the farm-to-fork raw material traceability audit, and the raw-material exclusion criteria covering dead animal extracts, toxic substances, human-derived material, carnivorous-animal derivatives, blood, and insect or rodent contamination. hac.lk (retrieved 31 August 2026).

Daily Mirror (2024), Sri Lanka’s Halal-Certified Exports estimated at USD 1.7 billion for 2023, reporting the top five OIC destination markets, Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, at USD 501 million combined, published 31 July 2024. dailymirror.lk (retrieved 31 August 2026).

Newswire (2024), Sri Lanka’s Halal-Certified Exports estimated at USD 1.7 billion for 2023, reporting roughly 20 per cent growth in Middle East destination markets over the period. newswire.lk (retrieved 31 August 2026).

Sri Lanka Standards Institution, Systems Certification Services, on the SLSI certification scheme under the Food Act No. 26 of 1980 framework. slsi.lk (retrieved 31 August 2026).