Trends of research topics related to Halal meat as a commodity between Scopus and Web of Science: A systematic review

Halal products in Islamic commodity markets

Commodity exchange is the trading of goods in the form of commodities between sellers and buyers. There are two types of commodity traded in the market—hard commodities such as raw materials and financial derivatives such as stock. The Islamic commodity market is a commodity exchange that runs according to the principles of Maqasid Sharia.

Commodities themselves are defined as the main merchandize or commercial objects. A commodity can also be defined as a real object that is relatively easy to trade and can be preserved over time. The characteristics of the commodity are that the price is determined by market supply and demand, and not by the supplier or seller. The price of the commodity on the market is based on the calculation of real prices based on the commodity type. Examples are agricultural products, such as coffee, cocoa, sugar, meat, fish, and grains, which are relatively lower than the price of mining-type commodities such as crude oil, gas, coal, and precious metals such as gold and silver.

The Islamic commodity market is quite different from conventional markets because the market follows the application of Sharia principles. According to the study by Kalimullina and Orlov (2020), there are a few Sharia parameters that must be met for the commodity to be accepted to the market. These were implemented to prevent mutual benefit for all. First, the commodities have to be halal and not illegal goods such as cocaine. Second, the type, quality, and quantity of traded commodities have to be transparent and not fraudulent. Traded commodities should have a clear price from the beginning to the end of the sales according to the contract. The contract itself has to be thoroughly observed and agreed upon by the parties conducting trading of commodities. Commodities have to be clearly owned by the sellers. If there was a time to deliver commodities, the time of delivery has to be clear. The buyer has an obligation to pay the seller for the purchased commodity by the agreed procedure and time based on the agreement (Kalimullina and Orlov, 2020).

Meat as an important source of nutrition

Agricultural commodities that are usually traded on the commodity exchange include coffee, sugar, cocoa, soybeans, and corn. In addition, forestry product commodities, such as various types of wood, can also be traded on the commodity markets, both Sharia and conventional. No less important are commodities from livestock products, namely, various types of raw meat, which are differentiated according to the source of the carcass (Kalimullina and Orlov, 2020). Mining commodities such as gold, platinum, and silver actually have a much more expensive price than renewable commodities such as agricultural, forestry, and livestock products (Ahmed and Sarkodie, 2021).

De Smet and Vossen (2016) stated that meat is a source of protein needed for growth. Moreover, meat is considered as a main ingredient besides staple foods such as grains or corn. Without meat, staple food to be eaten will lose flavor. Lose its flavor means that the staple food would taste bland, and needs some savory things to make the appetite of a person who consume it rise (Ivanović et al., 2016). A lack of protein can also lead to malnutrition, as was seen in children from Yemen or Ethiopia because of civil wars. Meat is rich in protein, fat, and iron, which are needed for the recovery of injured tissues. (De Smet and Vossen, 2016).

The world has entered the fourth Industrial Revolution, in which digital technology has become immersed in every aspect of human life. Globally, society can access almost all information through the internet. The use of social media in conjunction with the available multimedia technologies can help people become more aware of the importance of halal products, especially in Muslim countries (I Vanany et al., 2021).

A study by Maulidizen (2019) stated that halal products are considered as healthy because Islam prohibits gharar or high-risk economic practices. In economic practice, Islams are prohibited to do any transaction with uncertainty that could lead to a high loss because the risk of the transaction was high. Islam emphasizes the mutual prosperity in economic activities, so that there would not be any parties which suffer great loss.

Meat in commodity markets have to undergo several procedures to be accepted as ‘halal’ or ‘allowed to be consumed’ according to the principle of Sharia (Herianingrum and Shofawati, 2019). The demand for halal meat in the commodity market has become a new trend in the industry, especially for halal certification as a means to develop the industry, so that it can meet the required quantity (Asfia et al., 2021).

Research trends in halal meat in the commodity market found in Scopus

Table 1 shows that Indonesia was dominant in the number of papers published. Tenth November Institute of Technology/Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) was the institution with the highest number of citations of their papers related to halal and meat. There are only two non-Indonesian universities included in the list. Indonesia has the potential to become the center of the halal industry, especially in the meat industry because it has the largest number of Muslims in the world. Moreover, Indonesia has an abundance of natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable in nature (Mangunjaya and McKay, 2012).

Table 1 showed the 13 papers according to the study by Prasojo et al. (2019) with their affiliations. The paper with the highest affiliations was from Tenth of November Surabaya Institute (ITS), followed by Gadjah Mada University and University of Indonesia. It could be concluded that the technical specialized institution like ITS had more publications about halal meat rather than universities with emphasized Islamic major. Ironically, there was no Islamic universities in those Table 1, means that those Islamic universities had not enough papers with high citations which were related with halal meat.

A study by Ismoyowati (2015) stated that unlike Middle Eastern countries, which are countries that have an Islamic majority and barren lands but an abundant oil and gas supply in commodity markets, Indonesia has both rich land and an abundance of non-renewable resources. Indonesia’s rich soil and abundant mining resources could supply commodity markets with more agricultural products than most Middle Eastern countries, as well as mining commodities. Moreover, there has been no serious conflict or civil war, as has occurred in the Middle East, which has made Indonesia more prosperous in the commodity market (Ismoyowati, 2015).

Another factor supporting Indonesia’s potential as the center of halal industry is the presence of many Islamic boarding schools that run agricultural businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that can support the national gross domestic product (Aisyah, 2016). Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia, or so called ‘pesantren’, have a pre-determined set of rules for the people who live there to adhere to in daily life (Huda, 2018). Consequently, they are well disciplined when maintaining the business assigned by pesantren. Pesantren also implements the Sharia principles for conducting business activity with the focus of mutual prosperity, rather than for individual interest (Winarsih, Masrifah, and Umam, 2019).

Figure 2 shows that Indonesia emerged as a trend in index keywords related to halal and meat in 2018. Index keywords in Figure 2 were depicted by using Vosviewer and choosing the feature to ‘create a map based on bibliographic data’ – ‘read data from bibliographic data files’ – select ‘scopus’ – select ‘co-occurences’ – select ‘index keywords’ – select ‘finish’. Then vosviewer would started to extract the index keywords related to the topic of this study automatically. There were 18 index keywords with the highest relation with the topic of this study.

Figure 1. Flowchart of data collection and analysis for this systematic review.

Figure 2. Index keywords related to halal and meat in the 50 papers published in Scopus.

Source: Data processed by Vosviewer.

The index keyword in Vosviewer were developed by Nees Jan van Eck and Ludo Waltman. It was emphasized on the keywords that were made by the indexing website of journals, such as Scopus, SCI, PubMed, Copernicus, etc. The index keyword was developed based on the content of the paper, so that the keywords represented in a paper would reflect the content of the paper. Keywords of a paper also needed to increase reputation of the paper through search engine optimization (SEO), by using the highest trending word in a field of research, so that the paper would receive more attention from readers and aimed to be cited more. The more a paper is cited by the shcolars, the better the reputation of a journal which published that paper (Van Eck and Waltman, 2014).

Figure 2 showed that there was no sub topic related to technology, especially AI which could help in maintaining the condition of the meat itself. it could be means that p [aper with AI and halal meat as commodity would likely had high novety. Topic related to environment also had phigh novelty if it was correlated with halal meat as commodity. Those two topics would likely had novelty if a paper would be submitted into any journals indexed by scopus.

‘Indonesia’ as an index keyword as shown in Figure 2 is closely related to the topics of ‘food safety’ and ‘animals’. According to the study by Silalahi et al. (2021), food safety is a requirement for halal meat; it is related to the Sharia principles in which the economic activities have to be free from riba/usury, maysir/gambling and speculation, and gharar/high uncertainty that may result in injustice or deceit among any of the parties. Food safety is necessary to reduce the risk that consumers will become sick or poisoned as a result of consuming the meat products (Muslimin, 2019).

Other index keywords such as ‘halal product’ and ‘meat’, which were initially related to the topic ‘halal meat’, were smaller-sized dots than other major index keywords such as ‘Indonesia’, ‘article’, ‘humans’, and ‘animals’. There were fewer papers that discussed meat as a popular topic included in index keywords. ‘Meats’ as an index keyword here was related to other index keywords such as ‘halal products’, ‘supply chain’, ‘food safety’, ‘Indonesia’, and ‘animals’. Meat that is considered as a halal product must be maintained in supply to meet demand (Lever and Miele, 2012), so that market equilibrium can be achieved.

The supply chain is closely related to the commodity market, especially Islamic markets, because the price of commodities is heavily dependent on supply chains. Without a good supply chain system, the price of certain commodities is unlikely to be cheap and the supply will be scarce. Meat, as a commodity of the Islamic commodity market, also requires a good supply chain process to maintain high quality and to ensure that the criteria for halal certification has been met.

As for the index keyword ‘animals’, meat was closely related to the animal itself as the source of meat. The type of animal, their health, how they were raised, and the methods of processing the animal carcass were very important considerations for maintaining meat quality. The lower the meat quality, the lower the price; moreover, it would affect to the demand.

It is shown in Figure 3 that ‘meat industry’ as an author keyword was closely related to the keyword ‘risk’. Here, ‘risk’ could encompass not only the risks that need to be avoided for meat to be labeled as halal but also the risk of business processes involved with halal meat supply chains. The risk of profit loss during the COVID-19 pandemic has become higher since several restrictions have been implemented by each government of several countries. Restrictions such as closing international trade borders to stop dissemination of the virus could lead to a decreased demand for halal meat, which would result in profit loss for the industry. The color of dots of author keywords of ‘risk’, ‘meat industry’, and ‘downstream’ in Figure 3 is evidence that 2020 was a year of downturn in the halal industry.

Figure 3. Author keywords related to halal and meat in 50 papers published in Scopus.

Source: Data processed by Vosviewer.

Figure 3 also shows the that the author keyword ‘halal supply chain’ is connected to the other keywords of ‘meat industry’ alongside ‘risk’ as noted above. In the Islamic commodity market, especially for raw materials traded on the market, safety procedures for consuming the product are obligations that need to be fulfilled. A common method for preserving meat as a commodity is to freeze it, allowing it to withstand decomposition for a certain period of time. This is the way that the commodity of ‘meat’ can be prevented from carrying the risk of being decomposed and causing health issues for consumers.

Awal Fuseini et al. (2017) explained that in Muslim countries, frozen meat is considered as a healthy halal commodity. After the meat was cut and packed from the carcass, the package then was put in a blast freezer. Frozen meat can last longer than the packages of fresh meat and help sustain the supply chain in the meat industry. By maintaining the supply of meat through storage of frozen material, the prices of meat can be stabilized. Moreover, the industry also benefits because the raw materials are stable and safe for consumption when entering the commodity market.

With the presence of frozen meat, standardization of the quality of processed products can also be achieved. Frozen meat industries could meet the quota of demand from culinary and tourism industries with intended quality (Awal Fuseini et al., 2017). Supply chains, especially by providing good storage for keeping frozen meat, has the major responsibility for preparing and maintaining the quality of meat so that it is suitable for public consumption. One is by increasing the supply of frozen beef stock, because beef can cater to the demand for halal meat in the commodity market to a greater extent than can other types of halal meat, such as mutton, veal, or poultry (Lever and Miele, 2012).

As shown in Figure 4, the Journal of Islamic Marketing has been published more papers than other journals related to the topic of ‘halal meat’. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science also kept developing until 2021, but to a lesser extent than the Journal of Islamic Marketing. Several other journals increased their productivity in 2020 but decreased it in 2021. It can be concluded that halal meat was a very important topic of analysis for papers published by the Journal of Islamic Marketing.

A study by Ence et al. (2016) stated that the more the study with more specialized major poublish papers, the more insight could be dug from papers by the scholars that needed references. Figure 4 showed that Journal of Islamic Marketing published more paper about halal meat. By publishing paper more with the topic that have been become trends, a journal could gain more reputation by citations.

Figure 4. Source growth per year of the 50 papers in Scopus.

Source: Data processed by Biblioshiny of R studio.

Research trends in halal meat in the commodity market indexed in Web of Science (SCI)

As shown in Table 2, papers with the topic of ‘halal meat’ in Web of Science (SCI) are completely different in terms of varieties of affiliation than those in Scopus. There are no Indonesian universities included. However, Malaysian institutions are also included in Table 2. There are also a different number of citations in Table 2, several times higher than that in Scopus. It can be concluded that papers related to ‘halal meat’ in SCI were more commonly cited than those in Scopus. Most of these were universities from non-Muslim countries. This was different from Scopus in that most of the papers related to ‘halal meat’ were affiliated to Indonesian universities.

As shown in Figure 5, the keyword ‘slaughter’ has become a major keyword that was also connected by dots to ‘cattle’, ‘products’, ‘challenges’, and ‘identity’. ‘Slaughter’ refers to how to correctly slaughter cattle in accordance with Sharia regulations. The keyword ‘products’ refers to the meat from cattle. The keywords above mean that ‘cattle’, ‘slaughter’, and ‘product’ were important considerations to preserve the quality of halal meat. These keywords were popular during 2018, as shown by the color of their dots. The major keywords in Figure 5 are different from those in Figure 1, indicating that papers in Scopus related to halal meat had different popular keywords than papers in SCI.

Figure 5. Keyword Plus related to halal and meat in the 154 papers indexed in Web of Science (SCI).

Source: Data processed by Vosviewer.

In addition, Figure 5 shows that the dominant keywords in 2020 were “cattle,” “meat quality,” “species identification,” “origin,” and “food.” These keywords showed that the trends of research in SCI were focused more on the types of meat and the source itself. These were different from keywords in Scopus (Figure 2), which were more focused on “supply chain.” The keyword “origin” itself also means the source/animals of the meat. It is essential to know the “origin” of the meat before it is traded in the Islamic commodity market, because only verified halal products can enter the market.

Figure 5 also showed that there was no subtopic related to technology and digitalization. There was also no subtopic related to environment. It means that those subtopics also had higher novelty if it was implemented as a topic of the paper and submitted into any journal indexed by SCI.

As shown in Figure 6, the major author keywords in SCI were different from those in Scopus. While author keywords related to halal meat were related to risk and supply chain, author keywords from SCI related to ‘meat consumer’, ‘supermarket’, ‘livestock’, and ‘self–identity’. The keywords in Figure 6 were more connected to the target market and included ‘consumer’ and ‘supermarket’. Furthermore, the keyword ‘halal meat’ was also connected to the keyword ‘religion’.

Figure 6. Author keywords related to halal and meat in the 154 papers indexed in Web of Science (SCI).

Source: Data processed by VOSviewer.

Kabir (2015) stated that people prefer to eat halal meat for religious reasons. As the population of Muslims increases worldwide, the demand for halal meat is also growing. Haroon Latif of Dinar Standards, a company that researches the United States of America (US) halal market, said that there were several reasons behind the consumption of halal meat. The consumption of halal meat is increasing because of the large Muslim population of the world increasing as well (Kabir, 2015). Moreover, many non-Muslims also eat halal meat. There is a growing awareness of what halal meat is among society worldwide, but it has also been proposed that delicious halal food should be made more available in restaurants and at halal food festivals to introduce less familiar products (Masudin, Jie, and Widayat, 2020).

For meat to be acceptable to Muslim consumers, it must pass the halal certification and food inspection. The label halal itself means that a consumer who buys the product should not be exposed to any risk related to the product they bought (A Fuseini et al., 2021). The meat must also not consist of any parts of a pig. Pork is forbidden to be consumed, even a small piece of fat or the essence of meat itself (Vanany et al., 2019). It is said in the Holy Qur’an that halal products should be consumed and non-halal products should be avoided.

يٰٓاَيُّهَا الَّذِيْنَ اٰمَنُوْا كُلُوْا مِنْ طَيِّبٰتِ مَا رَزَقْنٰكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوْا لِلّٰهِ اِنْ كُنْتُمْ اِيَّاهُ تَعْبُدُوْنَ

As shown in Figure 7, journals related to halal meat from SCI were more dynamic than journals from Scopus with similar topics from 2006 to 2021. Moreover, Figure 7 also shows the prediction of source growth in 2022, which did not exist in Scopus. The most dynamic journals were the Italian Journal of Food Safety and Meat Science. All the papers in the figure show smaller source growth in 2020; despite an increase during 2021, it is projected that they will decrease again in 2022.

Figure 7. Source growth per year of the 154 papers indexed in Web of Science (SCI).

Source: Data processed by the biblioshiny package in R studio.

However, although the journals shown in Figure 7 were more dynamic, their growth rates were less than those in Scopus. The Italian Journal of Food Safety only grew by 30% in one year, whereas a journal in Scopus grew by more than 75% in one year. The number of journals shown in Figure 7 was also less than in Scopus. As Scopus and SCI have their own market pace for academics who wish to publish papers, the trends in topics would also be different (Martín-Martín, Orduna-Malea, and López-Cózar, 2018).