Halal meat in Spain: how trade buyers buy wholesale

Spain is an EU Member State, so meat produced, cut or stored there is subject to the same EU food law as anywhere else in the Union: the hygiene rules of Regulations (EC) No 852/2004 and No 853/2004, the general principles of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 and the labelling rules of Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011. Halal is an additional, private requirement on top of this framework.

For a trade buyer, the question is therefore not whether halal meat exists in Spain, but whether a particular supplier can document it for a particular lot. That means a valid halal certificate from a certifying body your customers accept, the approval of the establishments involved and documents that link the delivered goods to both.

This guide covers the trade: importers, wholesalers, butchers, processors, restaurants, hotels and caterers. Consumers usually buy halal meat from butchers and shops; supplying them is the job of the retailer, not of the wholesaler. What a buyer should look for in general is set out in our halal meat wholesale guide.

Larger buyers often buy directly from slaughterhouses or cutting plants, which suits full loads of one species. A wholesaler such as Carne Andalucía combines several species and formats from different certified plants and handles the specification, the documents and the transport for the buyer.

Whichever channel you use, the halal status of the meat depends on every stage it passed through. A wholesaler cannot add halal status that the plant did not certify, so ask which establishment slaughtered and cut each lot.

Carne Andalucía, for example, is named after our base in Málaga. The meat we supply comes from halal-certified plants in the EU or in third countries authorised to export meat to the EU, and the origin is documented per lot.

EU law sets out which origin information appears on the label:

• Beef and veal: under Regulation (EC) No 1760/2000, the countries where the animal was born, reared and slaughtered, the country of cutting and a reference number.
• Sheep, goat and poultry meat: under Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1337/2013, the country of rearing and the country of slaughter, together with a batch code.
• All meat from approved establishments: the identification mark with the country code and the approval number of the last establishment that handled it.

For a buyer, this means: read the label and the documents, not the address of the seller. If your customers expect a certain origin, put it into the specification so that it becomes part of the written offer.

1. Halal certificate: issuing body, establishment, species and products covered, validity. How to read one is explained in our guide checking halal certificates.
2. Recognition: is the certifying body accepted by your customers and, for exports, by the importing country?
3. Slaughter method: with or without stunning, manual or mechanical for poultry, as stated in the offer.
4. Approval numbers: do the identification marks on the products match the establishments named on the certificate?
5. Origin: does the label show the origin your customers expect?
6. Cold chain: agreed temperatures, transport and the check at goods-in.
7. Commercial terms: price, quantity, packaging, delivery point, Incoterm and payment terms in the written offer.

A supplier who cannot answer these points in writing before the order is a risk, regardless of where the company is based. Keep the documents together for each delivery so you can show the chain from the plant to your goods-in at any time.

For chilled and frozen meat, Annex III of Regulation (EC) No 853/2004 sets maximum temperatures that also apply during transport. They are the same for halal and conventional meat:

On the tax side, a supply to a business in another Member State with a valid VAT identification number is generally invoiced as an intra-Community supply without Spanish VAT, and the buyer accounts for VAT in its own country. Your own tax adviser confirms the details for your case.

The delivery point, the Incoterm and the type of transport are agreed per order and stated in the offer. Deliveries to third countries outside the EU follow the import rules of the destination country, which are clarified before the offer.

The more precise the enquiry, the more precise the offer. A useful enquiry contains:

• species and cuts, ideally with your own specification or reference;
• chilled or frozen, packaging and labelling language;
• quantity per delivery and expected frequency;
• the halal standard and slaughter method your customers accept;
• delivery address, desired date and Incoterm;
• documents you need, for example certificates or export documents.

The written offer should then state product and specification, origin, halal certificate and slaughter method, price, quantity, packaging, delivery terms, payment terms and how long the offer is valid. Anything not in the offer has not been agreed.

The full process from enquiry to goods-in check is described in our guide to ordering halal meat. You can send your enquiry to us through our contact form.