Woolworths will become the first supermarket to produce and sell its own brand, Muslimfood, thanks to Australia's growing Muslim population. The series will be named Al-Sadiq, which means "real" in Arab and will begin selling in May or June this year. It will be put on sale in 20 stores in Muslim's most populous community, such as Bankstown in Western Sydney, where a third of the population is halal.
The brand was created and certified by (Islamic Council of Queensland) of the Islam Committee in Queensland and will only offer halal chicken before the brand expands. Peter McNamara (Peter McNamara), head of acquisitions at Woolworths, said the company made the move because of a growing diversity of customers.
"for some time now, we have seen this opportunity to better serve our increasingly diverse customers in Sydney, Melbourne and other parts of Australia," he said. He said the company is choosing to diversify its products in stores with a larger number of international customers. McNamara said: "in the multi-ethnic or international market, what we have to do is to identify stores that clearly focus on customers from different backgrounds so that we can better serve them." Because Muslim food is religiously sensitive, he said, the company wants their own brand to make sure everything is right.
'when our fresh poultry team looks for the source of the product, we find it difficult to find such halal products with quality, consistency and certification confidence,'he said. He said Woolworths plans to expand its international food range to include Indian food, Middle East food, Muslim food, South African food and Jewish clean food. According to the 2016 Australian census, the Muslim population rose 15 percent to 2.6 percent, or 604000, from 2.2 percent in 2012.