Does the Halal Accreditation Agency decide whether a product is halal?

Answer

The Agency rejects this idea explicitly in its own statements: HAK is not a religious ruling authority and does not decide what is or is not halal. Its work is to accredit, against the relevant standards, those bodies that operate under those standards and issue halal certificates, that is, to grant them the permissions they need to certify and then to audit them. The aim is to help build a certification structure that is recognised internationally and visible to consumers. Accreditation is therefore an administrative and technical framework; it contains no religious ruling about a product. Whether a given product is halal must be assessed separately, by looking at which body issued the certificate and against which standard.