HRS 1:2026 — Annex B

Approved Supplier Register — criteria and assessment procedure

Public consultation draft — draft v0.1 — issued 2026-09-07

This is a consultation draft, not an operative standard

The scheme described here is not yet certifying. No certificates have been issued and the Approved Supplier Register is not yet populated. Nothing in this document may be relied on as evidence of certification.

It is published for comment before it is finalised, because a certification standard that cannot be read by the people it governs is not a standard. Clause 12.2 commits us to publishing it; we would rather publish it early and be corrected.

Comments are invited until 2 November 2026. See How to respond. Passages marked ⚖️ are open questions on which we are specifically seeking views. Passages marked 📋 will be reconciled against OIC/SMIIC standards before issue.

This document is a scheme design. It is not a fatwa and does not purport to state Islamic law; questions of Shari'ah are for our Shari'ah Committee, whose rulings will be published with their reasoning.

Companion to HRS 1:2026 draft v0.2, clause 5. ⚖️ = Shariah Committee ruling required. 📋 = reconcile against OIC/SMIIC 1:2019 / 6:2019 on acquisition.

B0. Why this annex exists, and why it comes first

Clause 5.1 requires establishments to source meat and poultry exclusively from approved suppliers. Until this register exists and has entries, no establishment in Azerbaijan can be certified. Annex B is not a supporting document; it is the gate.

Sequencing is fixed: approve suppliers → publish register → open restaurant certification.

B1. Supplier categories

S7 is deliberately excluded from the register. Registering vegetable suppliers creates administrative volume with no integrity benefit and dilutes the meaning of "approved". Clause 2.1 governs: for non-meat inputs, permitted unless shown otherwise.

B2. Routes to the register

A supplier enters by one of three routes. The route is recorded on the register entry and is public — users can see how a supplier qualified.

Route 1 — Recognised certificate (desk verification)

The supplier holds a current halal certificate from a body we recognise (list at B3). We verify the certificate is genuine, current, and covers the specific site and product scope.

• Verification with the issuing body directly — never from a copy supplied by the applicant
• Scope must match: a certificate for "beef products" does not cover lamb
• Site must match: a group certificate does not cover an unlisted plant
• Register entry expires with the underlying certificate
• One documentary surveillance per year; on-site if any concern

Route 2 — Direct assessment (our own audit)

We assess the supplier ourselves against the criteria in B4–B7. This is expected to be the principal route in the early period, since relatively few suppliers in Azerbaijan currently hold certification from a body recognised under B3.

• Full on-site assessment including witnessed slaughter for S1
• Annual on-site reassessment, plus at least one unannounced visit per year for S1 and S2
• Register entry valid 12 months

Route 3 — Imported certified product (chain of custody)

The product was certified at origin by a recognised body; the Azerbaijani importer is registered for chain of custody only.

• Origin certificate verified with the issuing body
• Import documentation, seals, and cold-chain records verified
• The importer is registered, not the foreign producer. The register entry names both
• Any break in seal or custody outside a registered party voids the status of that consignment

B3. Recognition of other certification bodies

We recognise a certificate only where the issuing body is itself accountable to someone. Recognition is by tier, published, and reviewed annually.

We publish the recognition list and the reasons. A body moved from accepted to not-accepted is published with the date and the reason.

This is the direct answer to the Wiley handbook's finding that 400+ unregulated halal certification bodies operate globally, many being one-person operations that will "sign and seal a blank halal certificate" (Ch 15 §15.8.2, §15.10.8). Accepting any certificate bearing the word halal imports another body's failures into our register. R4 exists to keep them out.

B4. S1 — Slaughterhouse criteria

B4.1 Legal and hygiene prerequisites

• Licensed for slaughter under Azerbaijani law; AQTA-registered
• Veterinary supervision in place; ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection records held
• No open enforcement action
• HACCP or equivalent food safety system documented and operating

Failure of any: not approvable. Tayyib is a precondition, not a bonus (HRS 1 cl. 9.2).

B4.2 The slaughterer

• Muslim, adult, of sound mind, understands the requirements of halal slaughter ⚖️
• Named on a list held by the plant; identity verifiable
• Trained, with training records
• Assessed by us and recorded on our register of approved slaughterers

B4.3 The act of slaughter — witnessed by our assessor

• Tasmiyah pronounced at each slaughter — live, by the slaughterer, not recorded ⚖️
• Knife extremely sharp, clean, inspected between animals
• Knife not sharpened within sight of the animal
• Cut at the correct anatomical site: both carotids, both jugulars, trachea and oesophagus severed, spinal cord not severed
• Animal alive and conscious at the moment of the cut ⚖️
• Animals not slaughtered within sight of one another
• Complete bleed-out permitted before any further dressing
• No shackling, hoisting, de-feathering, skinning or evisceration before movement ceases

B4.4 Animal welfare through the chain

• Transport, lairage, rest, feed and water before slaughter
• Gentle individual handling; restraint equipment appropriate and not injurious
• No beating, no branding of the face, no dragging
• Animals healthy at time of slaughter; sick or injured animals not presented as halal

An animal that has been mistreated is not halal (Wiley Ch 1 §1.3.1). Welfare is a requirement, not an ethical extra.

B4.5 Segregation where the plant also handles non-compliant

• Separate lines, or documented full changeover with cleaning and our verification
• Compliant and non-compliant carcasses never in contact
• Compliant product identified from the point of slaughter, unbroken to dispatch
• No pork handled on site ⚖️ (see decision B9.2)

B4.6 ⚖️ THE STUNNING DECISION — BLOCKS THIS ANNEX

The Shariah Committee must rule before any S1 supplier can be assessed. Three positions exist (Wiley Ch 5 §5.5): accept reversible stunning; reject all stunning; undecided.

The commercial consequence is severe and must be understood before ruling. In the UK — a far more developed halal market — the FSA found in 2013 that over 80% of halal meat came from stunned animals. A no-stun-only rule would exclude essentially all industrial-scale supply and restrict the register to small traditional abattoirs.

Options:

Recommendation for the Committee's consideration, not a ruling: option (c) is most consistent with clause 12.2 transparency and with the Class A/B philosophy of disclosing rather than deciding for the consumer — but only if "stun / no-stun" is carried through to the restaurant's register entry, so a consumer can actually see it. If it stops at the supplier, (c) is (b) with extra paperwork.

B5. S2 — Processor / butcher criteria

• Legal and hygiene prerequisites as B4.1
• All incoming meat from an S1 register entry or Route 1/3 source — full traceability
• Incoming delivery records retained ≥24 months
• Dedicated equipment, or documented and verified changeover, for compliant product
• No pork on site, or complete physical separation with our verification ⚖️
• Mincers, slicers, brine injectors and tumblers dedicated or verified-cleaned
• Output labelling carries batch identity traceable to incoming lot
• Mass balance capability — inputs reconcilable to outputs (same logic as HRS 1 cl. 5.7)

A processor is where substitution is easiest and hardest to see: mince absorbs anything. Mass balance at S2 is worth more than any number of visual inspections.

B6. S3 / S4 — Wholesaler, distributor, importer

• Legal and hygiene prerequisites as B4.1
• Every source is an S1/S2 register entry or a Route 1/3 certified source
• Chain of custody unbroken; seals intact; documented receipt and dispatch
• Segregated storage, identified, with no commingling
• Cold chain records complete
• No repacking or relabelling unless separately approved as S2
• For S4: origin certificate verified with the issuing body, not from the copy provided
• For S4: import, customs and veterinary documentation consistent with the certificate

B7. S5 / S6 — Manufacturers and ingredient suppliers

• Specification sheet for every supplied item, stating origin of every animal-derived component
• Where any component is animal-derived: species, and slaughter status where applicable
• Gelatin, rennet, enzymes, emulsifiers, glycerine, mono/di-glycerides: origin declared and evidenced 📋
• Alcohol/ethanol content declared, including as a carrier in flavourings ⚖️
• Change-notification undertaking: supplier must notify us of any formulation or source change before supplying the changed product
• Manufacturing site segregation where non-compliant products are made

The change-notification undertaking is the clause that matters. A supplier can be entirely honest at assessment and switch a gelatin source six months later. Without a contractual duty to tell us, the register silently becomes wrong.

B8. Assessment, decision, surveillance

B8.1 Application — form, scope declaration, document pack, fee.

B8.2 Document review — completeness and plausibility before any site visit.

B8.3 On-site assessment — per category. For S1 the visit must include witnessed slaughter of the species applied for; a slaughterhouse cannot be approved for a species not witnessed.

B8.4 Decision — taken by a person who did not conduct the assessment (HRS 1 cl. 12.5).

B8.5 Register entry — published fields:

B8.6 Surveillance

B8.7 Sanctions mirror HRS 1 clause 11. Additionally, suspension of a supplier automatically notifies every establishment recorded as sourcing from it, which must quarantine affected stock and demonstrate replacement supply. Establishments are given 14 days to re-source before their own status is affected.

This cascade is the reason the register must be machine-readable (HRS 1 cl. 12.3) and the reason establishments must declare their suppliers. Without it, a supplier failure silently contaminates every certificate downstream and we find out from a journalist.

B9. Consultation questions

1. B4.6 stunning ⚖️ — blocks all S1 assessment. Nothing in the register can proceed until this is ruled. Highest priority for the Shariah Committee.
2. Pork on site ⚖️ — absolute bar (B4.5, B5), or permitted with verified complete physical separation? An absolute bar is simpler to audit and easier to explain, but may exclude otherwise good multi-species plants.
3. Ethanol as a carrier in flavourings ⚖️ — must align with HRS 1 cl. 5.6. If 5.6 is absolute, B7 must be too.
4. Route 1 fee and effort. Desk verification is cheap for us and valuable to the supplier. Price it so it does not undercut Route 2 and quietly become the preferred route for suppliers holding weak R3 certificates.
5. Foreign producers under Route 3 — do we ever assess abroad, or always rely on origin certification? Assessing abroad is expensive; relying entirely on origin certification imports another body's judgement.
6. Register-entry validity vs. certificate expiry mismatch under Route 1 — confirm entry always expires with the underlying certificate, never after it.

B10. In preparation

• B-F1 Supplier application form
• B-F2 S1 slaughterhouse assessment report template, including witnessed-slaughter record
• B-F3 S2–S6 assessment report templates
• B-F4 Approved slaughterer assessment and register
• B-F5 Recognition list of certification bodies (per B3), with review procedure
• B-F6 Supplier change-notification undertaking (contractual)
• B-F7 Supplier suspension cascade procedure and notification templates