Chapter Six: Why Did Al Safa Not Grow as Large as I Thought It Would?
There are at least four reasons why Al Safa Halal did not grow as large as I thought it would. One is the Jewish ownership, the second is our overestimate of America’s Muslim population, the third is 9/11 and its aftermath, and the fourth is that most American Muslims do not keep halal, or at least not all the time.
1. Jewish Ownership.
It is common in business that when a product or idea takes off, copycats come into the market to take advantage of that success. That happened to Al Safa Halal. Al Safa was the first to provide widely-available halal foods for the Muslim community of North America. Other firms brought competing products to market. The problem for the other firms was that they were never able to develop a unique selling proposition. They were not able to say that their products were more halal, because Al Safa Halal products were prepared to the highest religious standard. They were not able to say that their products tasted better, because Al Safa Halal products were all produced in world-class facilities that made foods for the world’s largest fast food chains. They were not able to sell the products at a lower price, because Al Safa Halal products were always priced competitively. Thus, these would-be competitors came up with a different selling point, as follows: “David Muller is a Jew, and all Jews donate money to Israel, and Israel oppresses Palestinians. Therefore, by buying Al Safa Halal products, you are aiding the oppression of Palestinians.”
I cannot say in definitive numbers what impact this had on Al Safa Halal sales, but I can definitively say that it had a large impact. For the twelve years that I owned and ran Al Safa Halal, it was day in and day out a huge albatross around my neck. Our competitors and other detractors made sure that social media was constantly abuzz with “Jewish Al Safa,”“boycott Al Safa,” and the like. It was a battle that we were always facing and were never able to win, and frankly, it was discouraging to me and especially to my Muslim employees, who bore a heavy brunt of these loud voices.
2. Overestimate of American Muslim Population.
When I was pitching Al Safa Halal to prospective investors, I would always say that there are five million Jews in America and five million Muslims, and the kosher market is a billion-dollar industry; therefore, the halal market will also be a billion-dollar industry, and we will have first mover advantage, yadda, yadda. I got the figures of the Muslim populations from studies published by groups such as the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Muslim American Society (MAS). I have now come to realize that one of the goals of these groups is to increase the profile of the American Muslim community, particularly in political circles. If someone is running for an elected position and believes that there are a large number of a particular group within their constituency, they are more likely to address the issues of that constituency. Thus, these Muslim political action committees have vastly overstated their populations. After eleven years in the business, I can say that these estimates overstate the actual Muslim population by somewhere from two to three times.
3. 9/11 and Its Aftermath.
On the morning of 9/11 when the news was first coming out about a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Steve Hahn walked into my office and said, “David, we had better pray that Muslims had nothing to do with this.” Steve saw the impact from the get-go, and he was so right. The instantaneous display of anti-Muslim sentiment in America cannot be overstated.
There were four different ways that this affected us: the first was the tremendous anti-Muslim sentiment in America following 9/11; the second was the large number of Muslims who left America after 9/11; the third was the dramatic decrease in Muslim immigration to the United States following 9/11; and the fourth was that the community and community members increased their assimilation and decreased their Muslim identity and identification following 9/11.
a) Anti-Muslim Sentiment Following 9/11: Our sales proposition to supermarkets was that if you carry our products, we will bring a whole new group of consumers into your stores who have never shopped there before. After 9/11 it was impossible to say this to anyone, because the response would have been, “We do not want to have Muslims in our stores because they will scare away the rest of the shoppers.” Some people in America were scared of Muslims after 9/11.
b) Large Number of Muslims Who Left America After 9/11: My employees and I spent a lot of time day in and day out with the Muslim community, and we determined very quickly that Muslims were leaving the country in droves after 9/11. Some left because they were deported. Many were in America illegally and quickly made the decision to leave before they were caught, arrested, and deported. It became harder and harder for Muslims to get jobs in America, and thus many went back to their home countries, their American dream having become harder or impossible to attain.
c) Dramatic Decrease in Muslim Immigration to the U.S.: After 9/11, it became much harder for Muslims to move to the U.S., thus ending the decades-long stream of immigrants from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Firstly, the process changed such that it was much harder for people from such countries to successfully complete the U.S. immigration process. Secondly, the employment prospects for them once here were dramatically reduced, thus decreasing the allure of moving to the U.S.
d) Assimilation of Muslims in America After 9/11, it was scary to be a Muslim in America. Thus, Muslims stopped attending mosques and stopped shopping in Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian grocery stores. Many stopped referring to themselves by names like Mohammed, changing to Mo or Mike instead. Thus, one of the last things they had to worry about was what kind of food they were eating.
The summer before 9/11 we had just bought a fleet of fifteen Honda Civics, one for each of our field reps around America, and each of them was covered with our logo and our tag line “Proudly Serving the Muslim Community.” As soon as the day after 9/11, our salespeople starting having people swearing at them, motioning threateningly at them, and even cutting them off on the road. They all said that they had to remove the signage right away, and we agreed, and they did.
4. Many Muslims Do Not Keep Halal.
I designed Al Safa Halal using my knowledge of and experience with the North American Jewish community and observance of Kashrut. In particular, I knew that Orthodox Jews are careful not to violate the laws of Kashrut.
A prominent Islamic scholar explained to me that the Koran, the Muslim holy book, has different passages that can be, and are, interpreted in different ways. For example, one part says that you should only eat halal, whereas in another part, it says that you should eat halal when you can find halal, but that otherwise you can eat non-halal and just say a prayer before you eat the food and then you are okay.
Because of this, what I found is that most Muslims in North America eat halal at times, and eat non-halal at times. They have no religious problem eating a burger at McDonald’s with their kids and just saying a prayer before eating it.
Therefore, an argument such as there are x number of Muslims and they eat three meals a day, therefore, the market size is $Y billions, is simply not applicable. The amount of halal they actually eat is a tiny fraction of that Y number.
As an indication of how small the market really is, even after the company was bought from us by Engro Foods of Pakistan, the company never grew past the point it had attained under our ownership. This is true even though the brand continues to be ubiquitous in the North American Muslim community as North America’s premier brand of Muslim foods. Ask any North American Muslim to name a brand of halal chicken nuggets, and the answer one always gets is Al Safa Halal.