In the past few days, information has gone viral about the sale of Red Wine products with the Nabidz brand which are claimed to be halal certified on social media. Responding to this, the Halal Product Assurance Organizing Body (BPJPH) of the Ministry of Religious Affairs emphasized that BPJPH had never issued a halal certificate for wine products.

"Regarding the information about the online sales of wine products with the Nabidz brand that are claimed to be halal certified, we need to emphasize that BPJPH has never issued halal certificates for wine products," said the Head of BPJPH, Muhammad Aqil Irham, in Jakarta, Wednesday (26/7/2023).

"Based on data on the Sihalal system, we can confirm that there are indeed beverage products with the Nabidz brand that have received a halal certificate from BPJPH. However, these products are not wine or red-wine, but fruit juice drink products," continued Aqil explained.

Nabidz fruit juice products, continued Aqil, have submitted halal certification on May 25, 2023 through a self-declare mechanism with assistance from the Halal Product Process (PPH) carried out by the PPH assistant or facilitator.

The submission was verified and validated on May 25, 2023, with the proposed product in the form of Nabidz brand grape juice. PPH assistant has also ensured that the materials used are halal. The production process carried out by business actors is also simple, and the business actors state that there is no fermentation process in it. The product photos uploaded to Sihalal are also in the form of plastic bottles.

"Based on the results of the PPH Assistance verification and validation (verval), no violations or discrepancies with the provisions were found. Furthermore, the Fatwa Committee determined the decision of halal product on June 12, 2023," said Aqil.

Then, Aqil continued, BPJPH received a complaint that the issued Halal Certificate (SH) was in fact used for other products. Aqil emphasised that BPJPH did not justify this.

Aqil said that currently BPJPH has deployed a Halal Product Assurance Monitoring team to investigate the facts of the case.

"We immediately dispatched the Supervision team to explore all possibilities in the field. If there is a violation, of course we will strictly impose sanctions in accordance with applicable regulations, including the recall of the Halal Certificate," he stated.

Currently, continued Aqil, BPJPH has blocked the Halal Certificate number ID131110003706120523 for Nabidz Grape Juice products.

"We do this until the supervisory team's investigation process is complete. This is part of BPJPH's responsibility in carrying out the task of guaranteeing halal products," said Aqil. []