Intention to Halal Certification: Challenges in Increasing the Value Added of the Culinary SMEs

— Halal certificate is a tool for SMEs to increase the added value of products produced. By carrying out halal certificates, the product owned can be guaranteed halal status so as to provide peace for consumers, especially Muslim consumers. In addition, with halal certificates, SMEs are challenged to implement a Halal Guarantee System so that the quality of products and even the integrity of a business unit becomes better in the eyes of consumers. Halal standards and certification are mandatory in Indonesia. This is as mandated by Law No. 33 concerning Guarantee of Halal Products. In accordance with the law, there is a mandatory law for all products circulating in Indonesia to have a halal certificate. This means that SME products must also be halal-certified. The research conducted is a descriptive analysis of quantitative data to determine information on the intention and motivation of halal certificates in the eyes of SMEs. By using a questionnaire as an instrument. The sample used was 110 culinary SMEs actors with different lengths of operation and gender. By doing research in the city as known as the city of culinary, the results showed that all the SMEs have not done the halal certification yet. Nevertheless, the results of the interviews showed that all respondents were interested in conducting halal certification and understood that certification would be beneficial to the added value of their business processes.In general, this is due to business actors not yet having an understanding of the procedures for carrying out halal certification on their products. This is due to the lack of counseling and outreach about procedures for halal certification and incentives for SMEs in conducting halal certification.