The importance of halāl food awareness; a case study in Linxia, China

• Main Authors: Kartika, Betania, Maoqin, Guo, Razali, Mohamad Afiq, Jamaludin, Mohammad Aizat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Resurgence Academic and Research 2022
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/100355/7/100355_The%20importance%20of%20hal%C4%81l%20food%20awareness.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/100355/; http://nuqtahjts.com/index.php/njts/article/view/34/32
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

The global food market is concerned with food safety and its hygiene which is considered a worldwide issue. However, the business in China, concerning halālintegrity or halālfood industry, is significantly less. It happens as most people are unaware of the importance and existence of the halālfood industry. If the awareness is low, their attitude will be the same way as people might have less opinion about it or even zero understanding. Interestingly, although the Muslim population in China is very few as it is not a Muslim majority country, Linxia has a Muslim majority population that practices the Islamic teachings. Linxia is well-known as The Little Mecca. Apprehending their situation resided among non-Muslim environments with the higher influence fromsurroundings, exploring their attitude and behaviourtoward the halālfood industry is thought-provoking.Muslims need to havean understanding and knowledge of what halālis all about when measuring halālawareness. This paper aims to give an overview of halālawareness issues in Linxia, so the necessary steps can be taken for the improvement of the halālindustry in Linxia in particular and China in general. The awareness level in this paper is measured byidentifyingthe factors affecting Muslims in Linxia, China, in their intention to purchase halālproducts and their buying behaviour. Therefore, this study was constructed to identify the attitude and purchase intention of Muslim Consumers in Linxia toward halālfood products. The theory used to identify the factors is the Theory Plan Behaviour (TPB). The data was collected from 302 Muslim participants, and then it was further analysedusing the SPSS software. The result depicted that the participants’ attitude is positively correlated with their purchase intention and buying behaviourof halāl food products, and their purchase intention has a significant and positive impact on buying behaviour of halālfood products.