Halal in the supermarket: why it is almost never the own brand

Stand in front of the halal shelf for a moment and read nothing but the brand names. Wahid, Mekkafood, Marhaba, Ikbal, Lezziz, Kadir's. Brands you never see advertising anywhere else. What is not there is the supermarket's own brand.

That is no coincidence and it is not a detail. It means that with halal you almost always trust the word of a manufacturer, not that of the shop you are standing in. Below is what was in the online shops of the big chains in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany on 18 September 2026, and why it matters whose name is on the packaging.

Albert Heijn has a halal section without a halal product of its own

Albert Heijn has the most extensive halal structure of all the Dutch chains. A category of its own under Dieetwensen (dietary requirements), with subdivisions such as halal vlees (halal meat), halal kip (halal chicken), halal broodbeleg (halal sandwich fillings), halal snacks and diepvries halal (frozen halal). Type "halal" into the search bar and AH suggests search terms itself: halal broodbeleg, halal chicken, halal rundergehakt.

The products in that category are without exception from other brands. Filter the halal results by the brand Albert Heijn and exactly one item is left: AH Hoisin loempia's (hoisin spring rolls). That product page lists "veganistisch" (vegan) as a characteristic, the ingredients are entirely plant-based, and the word halal appears only in the breadcrumb, Diepvries → Diepvries halal. There is no halal claim on it and no certification.

So Albert Heijn has a category "Diepvries halal" in which the only own product is a vegetarian spring roll.

Something else that is not there: a position. Search for "halal" in the customer service pages and you get nine results on the Dutch site and fourteen on the Belgian one, and none of them is about halal. No yes, no no, no explanation of certification or method of slaughter. The largest supermarket in the Netherlands sells halal-labelled products and has not a single page about it.

Jumbo, Dirk and PLUS: the same picture

• Jumbo has two halal categories, with eighteen products under meat and twenty-six under cold cuts. Brands: Lezziz, Kadir's, Wahid, Chatar, Kamar, Erciyes. Striking: that category can only be reached through the category tree. Searching for "halal" in the search bar gave zero results.
• Dirk has the widest shelf with thirty-two products, from ten brands. The category text is about a wide choice and top quality, and says nothing about certification.
• PLUS carries thirty-eight halal cold cuts, twenty-four of them from Wahid. According to the trade press, PLUS has a separate halal module standing in more than a hundred stores.

None of the three carries a halal product under its own brand. None of the three names on the category page who certified it.

One Dutch exception, and that is exactly where the certification mark is missing

SPAR is the only Dutch chain that sells halal under its own brand. There is a SPAR frikandelbroodje halal (halal frikandel roll), where SPAR itself is the brand and Ethny BV is listed as the producer, and there is a gourmet set under the SPAR own brand Lokaal with halal in the name. The range differs per store, so it is not on the shelf everywhere.

And at that one own-brand product, precisely, there is no certifier. No body, no number. The chain puts its own name on it and leaves the question of who checked it unanswered.

In Belgium it is the other way round

Where Dutch chains leave it to manufacturers, two of the three big Belgian chains do it themselves.

• Delhaize sells a Braadkip Halal (halal roasting chicken) and a Kipfilet Halal (halal chicken fillet) under its own brand, with Delhaize Le Lion in Asse as the producer. Remarkably, that chicken sits in the ordinary meat tree: the halal category in the online shop does exist, but was empty on the date we checked.
• Carrefour has a real halal page and on top of that carries three products under its own brand: a Mix Tajine d'Agneau Halal, a Sensation Halal Steak and The Market Agneau Halal. Two of those three were unavailable on the date we checked.
• Colruyt openly chooses something else. There, halal means vegetarian and alcohol-free. The chain says it works exclusively with stunned animals and sells no fresh halal meat or halal charcuterie under Boni Selection and Everyday. In the Xtra app you can filter on halal, but that filter uses that own definition.

At Delhaize and Carrefour too, none of the own-brand pages names a certifier.

Germany: no own brand, and no national answer

In Germany we found no confirmed own-brand halal product at all. What is there shows the pattern well. REWE sells Gezer Fleischmanufaktur Halal Gehacktes vom Rind online. Halal is in the name of the brand, not in that of the shop. The product sits in the ordinary minced meat section under Fleisch → Hackfleisch (meat → minced meat), and the characteristics REWE attaches to it itself are "Regional" and "Gekühlt" (chilled). In their system halal is not a property you can filter on.

On top of that, the German online shops work per branch. So there is no national answer to the question of whether REWE sells halal, only an answer per store. In 2019 Kaufland laid down in a guideline of its own that halal goods there come only from stunned animals.

The certification mark sits with the manufacturer, never with the shop

This is the heart of it. None of the chains we looked at in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany names a certifier. Anyone who wants to know who checked something has to go to the brand. And there the answers differ widely.

• Yayla and Fulya show how it should be done. Certifier Halal-Europe in Aachen, certificate number HE-2025-12-1055, valid until 9 December 2026. Manufacturer, body, number and date: all of it you can check yourself.
• Gezer publishes a certificate from IHAC/BEC with number D-18-1825-03, valid until 12 August 2027.
• Egetürk, market leader in German halal cold cuts, names no certifier publicly anywhere. Certificates can only be seen on request.
• Suntat says it most clearly itself: at this moment there are no binding standards and no official certificate, and the brand vouches for the checking with its own name.

And that last point is correct. A halal certification mark is not laid down in law and is not established by the government. They are private organisations with their own standards, and those standards differ. Isla Délice lost its certification from AVS at the end of 2012 because the supplier started applying electrical stunning, and moved to ARGML on 1 January 2013. The same meat, two bodies, opposite verdicts.

What this gives you at the shelf

• Look for the name of the certifier, not the word halal. Halal on the packaging is a claim. The name of a body with a number is something you can check.
• A category name in the online shop is not a claim. "Diepvries halal" is a classification made by the shop, not a statement about the product.
• Ask the manufacturer for the certificate. The supermarket does not have it, the brand does. Look at the validity date while you are at it.
• Stunned or not stunned is a separate question. In Flanders and Wallonia slaughter without stunning has not been allowed since 2019, and German chains exclude it in their purchasing conditions. What is called halal in the supermarket comes in practice almost always from stunned animals.

Why we do it differently

We are on the other side of that question: we are the manufacturer and the shop ourselves. We cook all our dishes in our own kitchen, 100% halal, chilled fresh and never from the freezer. There is no shelf in between where someone else's name ends up on the packaging. That is also why we started as a halal meal service.

That does not make the question any less important, it only makes it answerable by one party. View the full menu, from Manisa Kebabı to İmam Bayıldı. And if you find yourself asking this kind of thing more often: we have already looked into which fast food chains are halal, with the same method and the same uncomfortable answer.

Frequently asked questions

Does Albert Heijn sell halal?

Yes, Albert Heijn has an extensive halal category with halal meat, chicken, sandwich fillings and snacks among other things. Those products are all from other brands, such as Wahid, Mekkafood and Marhaba. Albert Heijn itself carries no halal product under its own brand and names no certifier on the category page.

Which supermarket has halal under its own brand?

In the Netherlands only SPAR, with a frikandelbroodje halal among other things. In Belgium Delhaize and Carrefour do it: Delhaize sells a roasting chicken and a chicken fillet halal under its own brand, Carrefour among other things a tajine with lamb. In Germany we found no confirmed own-brand halal product at all.

Why is there no certification mark from the supermarket itself?

Because the certification sits with the manufacturer and not with the shop. The supermarket buys in a product that is certified as halal, but makes no statement about it itself. That is why you have to work out per brand who checked it.

Who checks whether something is really halal?

Private certification bodies with their own standards, such as Halal Correct, HQC or HFFIA in the Netherlands and Halal-Europe in Germany. A halal certification mark is not laid down in law and the government does not oversee it. Two bodies can therefore judge the same product differently.

Is halal meat from the supermarket slaughtered after stunning?

In practice almost always yes. In Flanders and Wallonia slaughter without stunning has been banned since 2019, German chains exclude it in their conditions, and Dutch chains demonstrably do not buy it in. Certifiers do differ among themselves on whether meat from a stunned animal is halal.

What does it mean if the packaging only says "halal"?

Then it is a claim by the manufacturer without a checkable source. Look for the name of a certification body with a certificate number, and check whether that certificate is still valid. If there is nothing, you can request it from the manufacturer.