Operational Efficiency and Waste Reduction in Halal Food Production: A Systematic Literature Review from an Islamic Operations Management Perspective

Abstract

The growing halal food industry faces the dual operational challenge of improving production efficiency while minimizing resource waste without compromising halal integrity. Although previous studies have addressed halal production, operational efficiency, waste reduction, sustainability, and Islamic economic principles, these research streams remain fragmented, particularly at the production-operations level. This study systematically reviews the literature on operational efficiency and waste reduction in halal food production and examines their integration through an Islamic Operations Management (IOM) perspective. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, publications indexed in Dimensions from 2014 to September 2026 were identified using four complementary search sets. The search yielded 86 records; after removing 12 duplicates, 74 records were screened, 33 reports were sought for retrieval, 31 were assessed for eligibility, and 10 studies were included in the final qualitative synthesis. The findings indicate that operational efficiency is multidimensional, encompassing process efficiency, productivity, cost, capacity, yield, resource utilization, and sustainable performance. Waste-reduction practices follow a progressive pathway of prevent/avoid, reduce, recover/recycle, and valorise, while halal integrity establishes operational boundaries for these improvements. A key conceptual finding is that operational waste and isrāf are related but not equivalent: operational waste represents technically measurable inefficiency, whereas isrāf provides a normative criterion for evaluating excessive or inappropriate resource utilization; their intersection lies in responsible resource use. Based on the cross-study synthesis, this review proposes the Islamic Sustainable Halal Operations Framework (ISHOF), integrating Islamic normative foundations, halal–tayyib operational governance, production operations, operational efficiency and waste minimization, and sustainable performance and maslahah-oriented outcomes. ISHOF positions Islamic principles as normative guidance for the objectives and boundaries of operational improvement rather than as substitutes for established operations-management tools. The framework provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical research on efficient, low-waste, and responsible halal food production.