very major religion represents a symbolic meaning to food and drinks by having rules to regulate their consumption, and sometimes include religious rituals. This is the reason why certain religions forbid and restrict the consumption of certain food completely, or at certain specific time (Aliman and Othman, 2007). In Islam, there are two terms that denote Islamic prohibitions and restrictions on food, which are 'Haram' which means unlawful or prohibited and 'Halal' which means lawful or permitted. The word 'Halal' is derived from the word 'Halla' which the meaning is lawful, legal, legitimate and permitted for Muslims .In reality, Halal is one of the crucial aspect of spiritual needs for the Muslim consumers which plays a vital role in their life by guiding them to purchase and consume the Halal product (Alserhan, 2010). Islam is the largest religion of Bangladesh as it is known as a Muslim country. Muslims comprise 90.4% of the population, followed by Hindus, who constitute 8.2%, and Buddhists, Christians, those who practice others religions and those who do not are the remainders. 1 1 Data.worldbank.org/country/bangladesh . Usually Bangladesh peoples are used to take Halal foods because they know the rules of Islam and grown up with the Islamic teachings. They are more aware about the benefits of halal foods compare to the non-Muslim countries. Besides, the Bangladesh people including young people are conscious about the Halal foods. On the other hand, the total population in Philippines was last recorded at 97.4 million people in 2013. However, Philippine Muslims people only comprise of 14% from the population, which those are practicing Islam. Because Philippines are a non Muslim country, most of the people of Philippines are Christians and it is almost 86.5%. 2 II. # Research Background . So the Muslims population in Philippines constitutes as the minority. Despite of cultural barrier, Muslims in Philippines have the potential to maximize their contribution if only the uniqueness that they have could be seriously utilized. Numerous approaches had been done and programs had been designed. In the Philippines, the Halal Standard had been designed for the advantage of all. However, along the way there were hurdles have had encountered that caused the realization of Halal declined. The purpose of the study is to investigate the awareness and perception of young Muslims consumer in Bangladesh and Philippine in relation to the Halal foods. Consumer perception and behavior towards halal food consumption in this both country is vital because it takes a serious role in monitoring and checking the halal food and products. Nowadays, Muslim consumers as well as other non-Muslim consumers demand healthy and good quality food. For Muslims, it must conform to the Shariah requirements. Therefore, it is worthwhile for companies and industries to take a closer look at consumer intention to offer good quality halal products and that can be used to predict and satisfy customers and company objectives. In addition with the diiference culture, where Bangladesh is major Muslims country and Philippines is minority Muslims country, perhaps the marketer need to take consideration in offering of their products. # Introduction III. Problem Statement It is statistically proven that demand for Halal products and services are increasing and the development of Halal food marketing is rapidly expanding in the global market. World Halal food industry had increase from US$635 billion in 2009 to US$765 billion in 2013. In 2014, Muslim population in the world is estimated to be 2.04 billion people. It has been estimated that 70 percent of Muslim engaged in Halal Food consumption (Halal Journal, 2012). However, a fundamental challenge to spread the Halal foods benefit through the young people in the world although all of them are not Muslim. As for the Muslims country would not be that much hurdles and difficulties, however the one from the minority Muslims country need more attention. Therefore in such situations, this study sought to examine the awareness of two country which is from the major Muslims country and minority Muslims country namely, Bangladesh and Philippines. This will probably be helpful in providing improved facts and information particularly in the Islamic Marketing research area. # IV. Objective of the Study The objective of this study is to know the level of awareness of using halal foods to the young peoples. The study also extends to measure the various impacts of issues, which is directly involved for using halal foods. To investigate the factors that influenced the level of halal foods awareness of the young Muslims consumer. To study the awareness level of Muslim consumers in Bangladesh and Philippine. To investigate the differences of halal awareness level between Bangladesh and Philippines young Muslims consumer. # V. Significance of the Study The primary drive for choosing this research topic is to fill the gap in the research field relating to Halal foods awareness to the young Muslims consumers of Bangladesh and Philippine. In addition, this study focused on Bangladesh and Philippine youths who are from 18 to 30. Past research, which had been done, focused on the Malaysian consumers in general or those targeted on specific geographic regions. This can be seen from a study conducted by Shaari and Shahira (2010), which focus on respondents from geographical area of Kota Samarahan. In the study, it shows that religiosity, halal awareness and halal certification have an impact on the Muslim consumer purchase intention. On the other hand, study made by Salman and Siddiqui (2011) also shows that self-identity is one of the dimensions, which affect the Halal food consumption. Moreover, the previous research theme measures the perceptions, behaviors and importance of halal logo and so on. Not many research focus on young people about awareness of Halal foods in Bangladesh and Philippine and how the youngsters are aware of the Halal products. These are the major significance of the study. V. # Literature Review The proposed model is designed with the awareness on halal food as the dependent variable with four dimensions of independent variables, which are: religious belief, religious commitment, attitude, and halal logo certification. Religious belief and religious commitment play roles as it was found to provide an improved explanation of unprocessed food choices and shopping styles (Mizerski & Muhammad, 2010). # Figure 1: Research Framework Whereas is attitude is an independent variabls which is categorized by religious' based evaluation on the awareness on variable which is also characterized by religious' based evaluation on the awareness on consuming and choosing halal food for Muslims. In addition, equally important is the fourth independent variable, halal logo certification that also contributes to the awareness on halal food among the young teenagers. The following discussion provides an overview of variables. # H1: Halal Awareness The term "awareness" means the knowledge or understanding of particular subject or situation. However, the terms "awareness' in the context of halal literally means having a special interest in or experience of something and/or being well well-versed of what is happening at the present time on halal foods, drinks and products (Bakar & Ambali, 2012). Subjectively speaking, awareness is one concept where a person may be partially aware, subconsciously aware or may be acute aware of an issues relating to halal aspect of what is permitted by Allah (Nizam, 2006). Therefore, awareness is something that is a basic part of human existence. So, awareness in the context of halal can be referred as the informing process to increasing the levels of consciousness toward what is permitted for Muslims to eat, drink and use (Bakar & Ambali, 2012) . # H2: Religious Belief Religion is a system of beliefs and practices that commands individual response and interpretations regarding what are supernatural and sacred those are tangled with rational elements, which requires the basis of knowledge that control and justify people attitudes and behavior (Mukhtar & Butt, 2012). Literature had suggest that religion has the powerful impact on ones consumption especially Muslim consumption behavior. According to Salman and Siddiqui (2011), religion is the guidelines for not only Muslim consumers but also the behavior of non-Muslims consumers; in fact religious impact is greater on the Asian consumer as compared to British counterparts. Thus we can say that the ones belief on religion has impact on an internal influence on the lives of individuals. In addition it is also had be found as one of the important determinant that affect the consumer behavior (Mokhlis, 2009). Besides, according to the research of Alam, Mohd, & Hisham (2011), Islam is the religion that had great influenced on the purchase decision of Muslim consumers. Therefore, religious commitment plays as the most important role in Muslims' lifestyle. Which can affect the purchase intention, perception and consumption behavior of the Muslim consumers amongst Malaysians? # H3: Religious Commitment The most universal and prominent societies that can strongly influence on one's behavior, decision, values and attitudes is the society that hold to religion # Religious Belief # Religious Commitment Attitude # Halal Certification # Halal Food Awareness and that is why religious commitment is an important and cultural factor. Based on the previous studies, Mizerski and Muhammad (2010) found that the consumers' commitment in performing religious behaviors in the marketplace. The way to measure for religious commitment would be a single item measure. Basically, consumers who rated themselves as being more religious followers tended to report being more offended by the advertising of "controversial" products such as liquor among Muslim consumers (Fam et al., 2004). In order words, we could say that, religious commitment is the degree of ones being religious. # H4: Attitude All cultures have different value system that shape people's norms and standards on halal food awareness among young group. These norms influence people's attitude accordingly. We have chosen Bangladesh Currently, the global Halal market specifically for food has gained its attention from the trade merchant world. In the Philippines, non-Muslims also tend to prefer foodstuffs stamped with the Halal logo for health reasons (Golnaz, R., *Zainalabidin, M., Mad Nasir, S. and Eddie Chiew, F.C., 2010) 5 . According to Muhammad (2007) 6 "The public relations office of Victoria Foods Corporation -one of the many firms with Halal , as he quoted, 3 certification -claimed that an increasing number of Filipinos are becoming health-conscious. Filipinos are now looking for Halal products, which they believe to be safe, healthy and good to be consumed". The Halal food chain is therefore adapting to newly emerging consumer interests like food safety, animal welfare and convenience in cooking and eating (Bonne and Verbeke, 2006). 7 Also, the Halal Research Council (2014), mentioned that the Trade Commissioner of Malaysia External Trade Development Corp., Mr. Ahmad quoted, "he believed that the Philippines have a competitive advantage in cosmetics, food supplements, and food seasoning ingredients. There are a lot of potentials (for these products). Just by having a small halal seal will bring big difference to your products being exported abroad," he said. 8 VI. # Methodology Conversely, as the most populous religion in Bangladesh is Islam, both non-Muslims and Muslims are aware of halal logo or certification. The general purpose of the study is to identify the halal Awareness of the young teenagers in two country namely Bangladesh and Philippines toward halal food. The design of this research is survey research that uses four variables. This study is a quantitative study and Cooper and Emory (1995) stated that the explanative study used to test the hypothesis and also explain the relationship and the underlying influence of these variables. This research used questionnaires as the methods for data collection. Basically, questionnaire is being use to measure the variables of interest. Several questions have been adapted and modified by previous study to search the answer for respondents' background and understanding of halal concepts in Malaysia. The questionnaire contains six main sections: 1) demographic 2) religious belief 3) Religious Commitment 4) Awareness 5) Halal certification 6) Attitude. A total 71 respondents were randomly selected from the Bangladesh and Philippines young teenager. Survey questionnaires were distributed online to the respondents and the questionnaires are filled up by online through Google document form. This research is meant for a mini research and thus, the range of sample size should be from 60-150 so that it will not be too small size nor too big and also the best sample size which can give the recommendable findings and can help to get the clear analysis. The sample size of this research is chosen to be 71 respondents. Those respondents are chosen from young adult o from Bangladesh and Philippines. The VI. Data measurement Scale (nominal, Ordinal or likert Scale) The questionnaire used the five-point Likert scale of 1 to 5 ( 1 representing strongly agree and 5 strongly not agree) to measure the consumers awareness of halal food. Based on the understandings from previous studies, questionnaire was adapted for the religiousity and halal certification (zainal et al; 2008). Besides, the halal awareness and attitude the questionnaire was also adapted from previous studies to collect information. In addition, consumers' demographic and social-economic backgrounds were also collected. # VII. Analyzing Procedure SPSS analysis was used to run the raw data in order to proceed with data analysis. Both descriptive and factor analysis was used to analyzed the information collected from the questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was used to analyzed respondents' demographic and social-economic, however the factor analysis is being used as a statistical technique which the objective to indicate the underlying factors might have impact on consumer awarenes on halal food. In addition, reliability analysis and Annova (degree of relationship) analysis also was done for this research in order to proceed with data analysis. As for the analysis of the comparison study, the T-test had been done. # VIII. hypothesis development Different hypothesis has been developed after going through past studies and the data collection stage. The different hypotheses are religious belief, religious commitment, halal certification, and attitude. H1: There is a positive relationship between religious belief and halal awareness of young Muslim consumers in consuming halal food. H2: There is a positive relationship between religious commitment and halal awareness of young Muslim consumers in consuming halal food. H3: There is a positive relationship between , halal certification and halal awareness of young Muslim consumers in consuming halal food. H4: There is a positive relationship between attitude and halal awareness of young Muslim consumers in consuming halal food. H5: There is differences between young Muslims consumer in Bangladesh and Philippines on the Halal food awareness. # IX. # Analysis and Results The result of this study showed that out of 71 respondents there were 44 male respondents and 27 females. Among the respondents up to from 24-26 years old were 40.8% followed by 27 and above years old were 29.6%. The respondents are commonly single with 59.2% and only 38% is married. Among the respondents are from Philippines and Bangladesh. For Philippines there were 32 respondents and 39 respondents from Bangladesh. # a) Reliability Analysis By applying IBM SPSS 20.0 version, this kind of analysis can help the researchers to the internal consistency of the data for analysis. The most common type of statistics is the reliability analysis which is called Cronbach's coefficient alpha. From the table 2 belowshowed the Cronbach's Alpha according to our independent variables, we have done one by one in order to get the accurate figure of the Cronbach's Alpha.The Reliability Statistics as shown below table 2 are on standardized items from.719 to .718 accordingly, which simply means that our measuring on each independent variable is very reliable. # b) Factor Analysis Inour case we rotated two times to get the significantvariables under four factors and these are Religious Belief, Religious Commitment, Attitude which divided into Environment and Halal and lastly is Logo. We have done the factor analysis two times on each variables in order to get the accurate measurement for extraction method, principal component analysis From the Table 3, ithas revealed that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)Measures of sampling Adequacy in our study is according to each variable as mentioned-above are these: Religious Belief, the KMO & Bartlett's Test is 0.479, as for Religious Commitment is 0.811, Attitude 0.563 and followed by Logo is 0.515. This is somehow could say a good result as it exceeds 0.5 Bartlett'sTest of Sphericity is 0.000suggesting that the factoranalysis had proceeded correctly and that samples were adequate execpt for religious belief which is below 0.5. # c) Degree of Relationship The proposed model (Table 4) consists of one exogenous variable (Awareness) and four endogenous variables(religious belief, religious commitment, attitude "environment and halal" and logo). In our research, the over all value is .964. This R Square value is very important because it reveals how well the striaght-line model fits the scatter of points. Since our R Square is quite high, the better is the stright-line's fit to the points. ( ) # E To assess the dimensionality of the"Halal Food Consciousness Among Young Adult: Comparative Study among Bangladesh and Philippines'. Factor analysis wereperformed using the principal factor/ component(PF) method, followed by the varimax rotation.Table 3 shows the results of the factor analysis testfor the variables. The Kaiser -Meyer-Olkin (KMO)value which is a measure of sampling adequacy. The results of the Bartletts Test of Sphericity were also significant, which indicatesthat the factor analysis processes were correct andsuitable for testing multidimensionality. Fifteen items of these questionnaires werefactor analyzed using principal component extraction with an orthogonal (Varimax) rotation according to each variable. The number of factors wereunconstrained. For thesake of convergent validity, 0.5 was used as afactor loading cut-off point. To express as percentage, this means that 65.09% of model explains the halal awareness among young adult between Philippines and Bangladesh. However, to understand more about statistical significance of this result, it is very necessary to look at the ANOVA Table 5. Next, the SPSS provides an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) section; with this information, it is necessary to understand that regression is related to analysis of variance. This tests the null hypothesis that multiple R in the population equals 0. The model in this mini thesis research reaches statistical significance (sig. = .000; this really means p<.0005, meaning that there is at least one significant difference. In the SPSS coefficients table 6, look at the Sig. Level for the t value for the constant. Because the determination of the significance of the intercept and the slope are so vital to vicariate regression analysis, we simply computed the values because the two values must be tested for statistical significance. From the result of the table 6 labeled as Coefficients, this is where the slope and intercept t test results are seen. Since our tests have significance levels of 0.000 which is Logo and the rest are above the 0.000, which are above our standard significance level cutoff of .05, so our computed (alpha) and (beta). The other value given is the VIF (Variance Inflation Factor), which is just the inverse of the tolerance value (1 divided by tolerance). VIF values above 10 would be a concern here, indicating multicolinearity. In our mini thesis research, the tolerance value of independent variables is from 2.363 to 1.359 which is not less than .10. Therefore, we can say that we didn't violate the assumption of multicollinearity. Furthermore, it support the VIF are also less than 10. The next thing we want to know is which of the variables included in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable. Subsequently, there is one negative sign which is halal under attitude -0.12 in the data analysis found, the largest beta coefficient in the table is .862, which is for logo. This simply means that this variable makes the significant or unique contribution to explaining the dependent variable, when the variance explained by all other variables in the model is controlled for. The other beta values for religious belief and religious commitment and attitude (Halal) of Halal awareness are accordingly, 0.57, 0.127 and 0.57 these made less of a contribution. From the coefficient matrix table we can generate the calculation of probability of halal awareness among young adult(Y) = a + b1x1 (religiosity belief) + b2 x2(religiosity commitment) + b3 x3 (halal) b4 x4 (logo). d) Test of Hypothesis H1. Religious belief is positively related to the halal awareness among young adult. According to the table 6, the factor H1 independent variable in standardized coefficient is .057, meaning not supported and it's insignificant as it has the third highest .256. The H2 which is the religious commitment based on awareness towards Halal products will positively influence the Filipinos and Bangladeshi on halal products, it supported and has significant of awareness among young adult in halal product so as the H4, Halal logo s will positively aware of Halal products and has the highest standardized coefficient beta of .862. Furthermore, for the significance test of each variable, from the Table 6, we have checked the value in the column marked sig. This tells whether the variable is making a statistically significant unique contribution to the equation or not. According to the research, P value To test whether a true difference exists between the 2 countries Philippines and Bangladesh, we tested the null hypothesis which is equal to zero. If the null hypothesis was true, then 95% of the differences would fall within +1.96 to -1.96 standard errors of zero. # Table 8: Sample Independent t-test The annotated output from our table 8, we have done one by one on each variable. The first table reveals that the mean of the 32 Philippines is .073 and the mean for the 39 Bangladesh is -.060. The SPSS computes the results two different ways. One is identified as so called "equal variance assumed", and the other one is the "equal variances not assumed." In our case, our output, the F value is identified from .106 to 6.897 with a Sig. (probability) of .746, the least is .011. The probability reported here is the probability that the variance line on the output. If the probability associated with the F value is small, say 0.05 or less, and then the variances null hypothesis is not supported. Using the equal variance estimate information, we computed t value is .562 from the first independent variable religious belief, and the associated probability of support for the null hypothesis of no difference between Philippines' awareness and Bangladesh' awareness towards halal product among young adults. And same goes to the rest independent variables. In other words, Philippines and Bangladesh from young adults are aware of halal products based on the knowledge we have done the hypothesis. # X. # Conclusion Universities students are very conscious about Halal purchase intention. Therefore, the 3 variables (religiosity, self-identity and halal certificate) are affected to its dependent variable. Firms/organizations must comply with the Islamic point of view. Muslim population 1.8 Billion with majority is adult age. Therefore, Halal products must be labeled accordingly as it may affect the purchase intention of each individual especially new generation. For further information, future researchers may continue to evaluate this study whether the universities students in Malaysia are aware of Islamic products that are offered widely around the globe by penetrating marketing strategies in some part of the world like in Arab Golf or Europe or in West. Thus, the marketing approach requires managers of any industry related to Halal to perform their work efficiently by being honest, well informed with customers about the product and being alert to how their services can meet customers' needs. Importantly, corporate image describes the picture an organization presents to the public. Nowadays, young generations can check further information about certain product whether it is genuine or not. Furthermore, the students are smart enough to differentiate the product and service via internet, the widely common users everywhere in the world. # XI. # Further Research Scope Further research should be considered to gather more information regarding the service quality and customers' satisfaction dimensions in context of the local and international students in Malaysia. Also, the limitation of this study was the difficulty in approaching wide variety of universities across Malaysia. This is due to time limitation and cost. For further research, the researchers need to increase the number of respondents involved in the research study to get enough result and the analysis will be as accurate as possible. ![Bonne, K. and Verbeke, W. 2006. Muslim consumer's attitude towards meat consumption in Belgium: insights from a means-end chain approach. Anthropology of Food 5: 1-24.](image-2.png "7") .Whereas in the Philippines, most of consumers have theattitude towards halal food is always with religious pointof view.H5: Halal Certification 1ItemsFrequencyPercentageAGE:18-20(years)1216.9%21-23(years)912.7%24-26(years)2940.8%27 and above2129.6%GENDER: Male Female44 2762% 38%MARITAL SATTUS:Single4259.2%Married2738%Others22.8%COUNTRY: Philippines Bangladesh32 3945.1% 54.9% 3Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy..811*Bartlett's Test ofApprox. Chi-Square110.616SphericityDf6Sig..000*Sample for FACRELCOMITMENT (religious commitment) 4 2Cronbach's AlphaCronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized ItemsN of Items.719.86019.786.7864.729.7253.718.7343 5ModelSum of SquaresdfMean SquareFSig.Regression65.098513.020170.301.000 a1Residual4.89364.076Total69.99169a. Predictors: (Constant), REGR factor score 1 for analysis, REGR factor score 1 for analysis 1,REGR factor score 1 for analysis 1, REGR factor score for analysis 1b. Dependent Variable: REGR factor 1 for analysis 1 7 www.tradingeconomics.com/philippines/population © 2018 Global Journals January 28, 2014, retrieved from: http://halalrc.blogspot.c om/2014_01_01_archive.html activities, rather than their beliefs in religious doctrines, have an effect in their responses in regards to their age ranges of the respondents are from 18 and above, which includes both male and female.© 2018 Global Journals 1 Halal Food Awareness of Young Adult Muslim Consumer's: Comparative Study between Bangladesh and Philippines © 2018 Global Journals 1 * Is religiosity an important determinant on Muslim consumer behavior in Malaysia SSAlam RMohd BHisham Journal of Islamic Marketing 2 1 2011 * On Islamic branding: brands as good deeds BAAlserhan Journal of Islamic Marketing 1 2 2010 * People's Awareness on Halal Foods and Products: Potential Issues for Policy-makers ARAmbali ANBakar Procedia -Social and Behavioral Sciences 121 2014. 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