Cadbury: Our Chocolates Are Halal

PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA – June 3, 2014 – Cadbury Malaysia today affirmed that all its chocolates made and sold in Malaysia are halal. This comes on the back of confirmation by the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM), which released official test results on the two affected batches yesterday.

“We at Cadbury Malaysia are happy to confirm what we have believed all along – that the chocolates we make and sell in Malaysia are halal," said Sunil Sethi, Managing Director, Mondelez Malaysia. "Having operated in Malaysia for over 40 years, nothing is more important to us than our consumers' trust. We intend to put this incident behind us and focus on spreading joy which is at the heart of everything we do at Cadbury.

“While incidents such as this are unfortunate, we are grateful to the relevant authorities for clearing up the air and ensuring that future abnormalities in their test results would be verified internally before making them public,” Sunil continued.

All of Cadbury's products manufactured and sold in Malaysia are in alignment with JAKIM’s halal guidelines. JAKIM is the highest halal certification authority and regulator on halal guidelines in Malaysia, and is the only body in Malaysia tasked with ensuring products with the halal logo are permissible by Islamic law.

Sunil added, “We understand the importance of ensuring that the cultural and religious interests of all Malaysians are met. Muslims make up the majority of the population in Malaysia, which is why halal is and always will be our non-negotiable top priority.
“We have established an Internal Halal Committee (IHC) since we were certified in 2004 to demonstrate our commitment towards halal. Our employees are trained on the requisite certification.”
Cadbury will continue to work very closely with the relevant authorities and observe the required quality processes internally.

Background

On Friday, 23 May 2014, posts on social media revealed that two variants of Cadbury chocolates – Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut 175g (with batch number 200813M01H I2 that expires on November 13, 2014) and Cadbury Dairy Milk Roast Almond 175g (with batch number 221013N01R I1 that expires on Jan 15, 2015) – analysed by the Ministry of Health tested positive for traces of porcine DNA.

Despite not having the actual laboratory test results for verification, Cadbury Malaysia proactively initiated a voluntary nationwide recall of the affected batches within the following day, 24 May 2014.

On 26 May 2014, Cadbury Malaysia opened its factory in Shah Alam to JAKIM's monitoring and halal enforcement team to collect samples of the two chocolate product variants for further testing.

On 2 June 2014, JAKIM verified that test results conclusively showed that the two variants in the affected batches are halal.

Throughout this period, Cadbury has continued to stand by its halal certification.

Cadbury is Malaysia’s best-selling chocolate brand and is consumed by a third of Malaysian households. Cadbury chocolates have been manufactured in Malaysia for over 40 years under Cadbury Confectionery Malaysia Sdn Bhd.