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Maimun said... - The following comment which was noted and translated from an Arabic website, gives us a deeper insight about the issue of whether QBB Ghee sold in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei actually constitutes of pig lard.
According to the following websites:
1) http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/07/03/10225548.html and
2) http://www.dubaicityguide.com/site/business-finance/data/Eng.%20%20Price%20List%20Group%202%20on%20May%2020092.xls.
3) http://www.economy.ae/English/Consumers/PricesAndMarketResearch/Pages/WeeklyPricereport.aspx
4) http://www.economy.ae/Documents/Thirds%20Group.pdf;
QBB is sold as Animal Shortening in various supermarket outlets in the United Arab Emirates. Further QBB is marked as a product of Singapore. Why? Is it because:
It is being produced under the licence of QBB Pte. Ltd., Singapore.
It is actually packed in a factory located in Singapore
It is shipped from Singapore
So far QBB Pte Ltd., Singapore only acknowledges that there its factory is located in Shah Alam, Malaysia.
As far as product classification is concerned, UAE’s classification is indeed credible. Mind you, the Ministry of Economy, United Arab Emirates has one of the best food labelling enforcement in Asia. Every time a food consignment is received at their ports, a random sample is taken and sent to government labs to determine its actual content.
From the website: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Animal+Shortening, we know that animal shortening is defined as lard (lahrd) purified internal fat of the abdomen of the hog or commercially retrieved pig fat.
And according to the Malaysian website: http://produkhalal.wordpress.com/2007/09/08/list-of-non-halal/,
Animal Shortening is defined as type of fat such as lard that is solid at room temperature, and is used for making pastry and is a non-halal product.
Why is then QBB still being categorised in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei as halal and sold as pure butterfat ghee when in the Arab world they had changed its labelling to animal shortening somewhere in 2006/2007 and classified it as non-halal once QBB’s production was shifted from Australia supposedly to Malaysia. Therefore in which region is it being labelled correctly and in which region is it being misrepresented to its consumers?
