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SPECIAL EDITORIAL FEATURE KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW n FEBRUARY 2018 n www.kitchenwarenews.com 16 Value in Courting Muslim Shoppers foods." A 2016 Pew Research Center study estimated that some 3.3 million Muslims live in the United States, with the potential for as many as 6.6 million by 2050. The average Muslim household has 4.9 members, with a wide age range in the house. Of course not all Muslims are Arab- Americans; many are second- or third- generation Americans with roots in other Muslim countries, and some are immigrants f rom around the globe. Pew reported in that study that the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are the majority in 49 countries. Indonesia is home to the largest population, while India has the second-largest population. Indeed, said the Pew report, a ban on Muslim immigration from the seven countries named in President Donald Trump's executive order would affect just 12 percent of the world's Muslims. "As the United States becomes more diverse, there is an increasing opportunity for food producers to differentiate their products and gain price premiums," said a Penn State Extension report on how producers can market to Muslims. "However, as with any market segment, the marketer must get to know the customer. The Muslim audience has particular religious beliefs that constrain their diets. By providing foods that fit Muslims' prescribed diets, producers may be able to diversify their markets and increase their profitability." What is halal? Muslims follow dietary rules on what is "halal," or acceptable, and what is "haram," or forbidden. In Islam, eating is as much a form of worship as prayer, and observant Muslims are careful to follow the rules. Halal begins with how animals are fed and raised, and follows through to slaughter, when the animals must be quickly killed by hand, and their blood drained. Animal byproducts such as blood, gelatin and processed dairy products made with enzymes or additional proteins from animals are prohibited. Alcohol is also strictly forbidden, and that includes flavoring extracts made with alcohol, as is pork. The Muslim customer at Starbucks, for example, will find her choices severely limited because of the alcohol in vanilla extract, which is used in many drinks and almost all baked goods. She would know that before she went into Starbucks, however, if she looked at MuslimConsumerGroup.com, which maintains lists of halal and haram foods, personal care items and more. Colgate understood halal/haram early, and most of its toothpastes, including one flavored to taste like the traditional miswak twigs used as toothbrushes, are halal because they contain no alcohol or carrageenan (which may have been processed with alcohol). "There are many levels of halal, just like there are many levels of kosher," says Saffron Road's Durrani. "Ideas of halal are currently going through an evolution, just as kosher did during the 1940s." Muslim or not, many customers appreciate the standards that halal labeling can offer. For Millennials particularly, ethical consumerism ― the idea that a shopper effectively votes with her dollar by buying food with production practices she supports ― is just par for the course. "Most of the people (buying our products) are not Muslim, but they just love the values that we espouse around halal," Durrani said. "Transparency is very important to them, and we try to be very transparent with consumers about everything that we do." In Saff ron Road's case, he said, that includes following the strictest certifications for animal welfare. " We have met the standards of the highest levels of humane welfare in the world, and that 's what I consider halal," Durrani said. That certification comes from Certified Humane, which follows slaughter guidelines written by Dr. Temple Grandin, the world- renowned authority on animal behavior. "For us, it's clean ingredients, making sure that the livestock is family farmed and 100 percent vegetarian fed, with the livestock actively socialized and raised in a stress-f ree environment that promotes healthy behavior for the animal," said Durrani. "It's the sacredness of our food system, whether that's the livestock, the plants they eat or the farmland they graze on. We look at the whole life of the animal, not just at its slaughter." Marketing opportunities The halal market offers rapid growth to savvy retailers, experts say. "This is an incredible opportunity," Durrani said. "It's a consumer group that has been so beaten down because of xenophobia that if you go toward them one inch, they come running to you. It's a disenfranchised community. The impact of marketing to this disenfranchised community has a significant upside with very little risk, and the upside so outweighs the little amount of risk." Embracing inclusiveness is a "ubiquitous value that a lot of Americans aspire to. There's a celebration of diversity in America," Durrani said. "Don't push anyone away ― create a bigger tent and invite everyone to come into the tent." KN (cont. from Page 15) Gourmet Cashew Brand Benefits Native Producers life crisis, Larson went back to Af rica looking for new opportunities to do business there. "I was just disillusioned with life, despite having everything," he says. After some initial explorations in Tanzania, an English business investor suggested to him that he take a look at Mozambique, which had once had a thriving cashew industr y that needed some help to reestablish it. Mozambique gained its independence f rom Portugal in 1975 after a decade of armed struggle. The power struggle that followed Portugal's exit f rom Mozambique plunged the country into a civil war that killed a million people, created vast numbers of widows and orphans, destroyed the countr y 's cashew industry and ended only with a 1992 peace agreement. The peace deal held until 2013, when skirmishes began again between Mozambique's government forces and insurgent rebels based in the northern half of the countr y. Today, Mozambique remains one of the poorest countries in Af rica, with more than half of its 24 million people living in poverty. Life expectancy there is 50 for men and 52 for women. There are many reasons why it 's a hard place for an orphaned kid to grow up and just as many reasons why the cashew industry had fallen into disarray and needed some help to recover. After that investor suggested that he take a look at Mozambique, Larson made a trip to its capital, Maputo, in 2011. Government officials there were eager to meet with him and to assure him of their assistance if he'd come to the country and start a business that would contribute to its economy. Larson considered the assistance they offered through a free trade zone that now allows him to import his packaging and other materials into the country without paying import taxes, he met with cashew farmers, he met widows and orphans, and he decided that he was the guy and this was his new country. "I was willing to uproot my family to go there," he says. When he went back to the United States, he and his wife started selling and donating ever ything they owned in preparation for a move to Mozambique that has now become a permanent plan for their future residence. Even an incident in which his home was invaded by armed thieves who threatened his wife and children as well as his own life didn't change his mind. As he tells the story now, the thieves pushed him around his house demanding his car keys, which he could never remember where he dropped when he came into the house. As the thieves' leader counted down the seconds before they'd start firing their AK-47s, Larson asked his wife if she knew where he'd left his keys. She reminded him that she'd told him over and over again that he needed to be more careful with his keys. As the thief 's count of the number of seconds left in his life went down to zero, Larson figured that admonition was going to be the last thing he ever heard f rom his wife. "Fortunately, they started counting again, and I found my keys," Larson says. "I gave them the keys, and they were off." Larson and his family never even thought of leaving the country to its own devices, both Don and Terri Larson say. "It cemented our relationship with the people there," Terri says. "They knew what had happened, and it showed them that we were committed." "We've been through a lot," her husband adds. " We're not going anywhere." KN (cont. from Page 15)

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