Kibidango made by Koeido is now halal certified.
In December 22, 2014, KOEIDO CO., LTD. obtained halal certification for 8 of their products such as kibidango, etc. from Japan Islamic Trust.
In 2013, washoku was registered to become a part of world heritage, and Tokyo was selected to be the host of Olympics/Paralympics in 2020. Due to the recent pouring of word’s attention to Japan, we are anticipating an increase of foreigners visiting Japan for tourism and business related purposes. Among such foreign visitors, we are anticipating a future increase in the number of Muslims with total population of roughly 1.9 billion people (accounts for one fourth of world population) coming to Japan for various reasons such as sightseeing, business, and residential purposes.
Out of our desire for foreigners visiting Japan (especially Muslim visitors who are having a difficult time finding halal corresponding food) to be able to enjoy Koeido’s kibidango as a food that can be enjoyed safely, They’ve decided to obtain halal certification.
With this as the initiative, we would like to see many more foreigners being interested in Japan and in “wagashi”.
Furthermore, for Koeido’s future prospect, with kibidango as our main product, it will bring us no greater joy than to be able to serve a role in transmitting Japanese traditional culture to the world through our production/sales of wagashi.
Halal certified products are as follows:
- Ganso (original) Kibidango
- Kokuto (brown cane sugar) Kibidango
- Kaieniri (with sea salt) Kibidango
- Kinako (soybean flour) Kibidango
- Hakuto (white peach) Kibidango
- Genmai (brown rice) Kibidango
- Kohaku (red and white) Kibidango
- Mukashi (old days) Kibidango
We heard couple of interesting explanation regarding the halal certification process for Koeido. One such explanation is that although there are products aside from kibidango such as soy sauce and mirin (sake used for seasoning), the halal obtaining process still went smoothly since the production line of kibidango inside the plant is located in a different floor. We were also told that this was a case where halal certification can be approved without having to have Muslim worker work for the company.
