Why halal certification is becoming a growth lever for African SMEs

For years, halal certification was treated by most small food producers as a box to tick before they could sell into a particular market. It cost money, it took time, and beyond that, it rarely came up in conversation. That is changing quickly, and the businesses that noticed first are now several steps ahead of everyone else on the exhibition floor.

At our expos, we regularly ask buyers what makes them stop at a stand versus walk past it. Certification comes up unprompted again and again. Not price. Not packaging. Certification.

The buyer's problem, not just the seller's

Distributors sourcing for supermarkets in Nairobi, Kampala or Dubai are not halal certification experts. They are trying to move quickly through a hall of a few hundred exhibitors, and a visible, verifiable certification mark does something specific: it removes one entire category of due diligence they would otherwise have to do themselves.

That is the shift. Certification is no longer a claim you make about your product. It has become a shortcut you hand to the buyer, and buyers reward whoever makes their job easier.

"ISHMAR gave our brand real visibility and connected us with buyers we wouldn't otherwise have met. The certification guidance alone was worth exhibiting for." — Food & Beverage Exhibitor, ISHMAR Traders Expo

What we see on our floor

Exhibitors with visible, current certification documentation displayed at the stand consistently draw more sustained conversations than those without it prominently shown, even when product categories are similar.

That pattern holds across food, cosmetics and health products, the categories where certification carries the most weight with institutional buyers.

Three things exhibitors got right

• They renewed certification well before the event, rather than scrambling in the final week.
• They displayed the certificate itself, not just a logo, somewhere a buyer could actually read it.
• They trained stand staff to answer certification questions confidently, without redirecting to "someone who handles that."

What this means for exhibitors

Our team offers Halal certification guidance to exhibitors ahead of every event, so buyers can trust what's on the stand rather than take it on faith. Exhibitors who get ahead of that, by having documentation ready and staff briefed, have one less thing to worry about on the floor.

Certification will not replace a good product. It never has. But at a trade show where buyers have perhaps four minutes for your stand, it is increasingly the difference between a real conversation and a polite nod on the way past.