Two years ago, when the pandemic hit and Betul Turker lost her job, she realised that was the demographic that was untapped in her local area.
She set up a health food store in the fast-growing and culturally diverse community of Coolaroo, in Melbourne's north. Here, more than 30 per cent of the population identify as Muslim.
"We've seen a massive increase in young mums wanting to purchase low-tox cleaning products, especially because they're starting a new family," Ms Turker says.
In addition, many of the young Muslim mums coming into her store don't want to use products that contains certain animal products, or alcohol, as their religion doesn't allow it.
That's why almost everything she sells at The Nutrition Corner — from vitamins to cosmetics and cleaning products — is vegan, organic and halal-certified.
"Halal cosmetics just means that the ingredients that they are using our Halal-certified, because it's very common in skincare and makeup … to use animal fats as emulsifiers, to use alcohol as preservatives," Ms Turker explains.
According to the latest State of the Global Islamic Economy Report, the world's 1.9 billion Muslims spent about $3 trillion in 2021 across the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, fashion, travel, and media and recreation sectors.
This was an almost 9 per cent increase in spending from the year before.
Excluding the finance sector, Muslim spend is forecast to reach about $4 trillion by 2025. That is a four-year annual growth rate of 7.5 per cent.
Vitamins company Blackmores targets 1 billion consumers by 2025
It's not just small businesses that have realised the massive export opportunity.
While China is and will always been a massive market for vitamins brand Blackmores, two years ago the company started exporting halal-certified supplements to small retail outlets across South-East Asia.
"Our ambition is to reach 1 billion consumers by 2025," says Blackmores chief executive Alastair Symington.
Read more on : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-14/muslim-mum-exports-southeastasia-middle-east-vegan-organic-halal/101435788
