Mongolia has been exporting meat to Iran since 2016. With a surging demand from Iran for halal meat and as Mongolia pushes to make more money from the huge herds of livestock that roam its vast grasslands, Darkhan Meat Foods along with rival meat producers Max Impex and Max Market is rushing to supply mutton to Iran.

In order for meat to be deemed halal, the butcher who slaughters animals must be Muslim. Mongolia is predominantly Buddhist, but 100,000 mostly-Muslim Kazakhs account for around 3 percent of its population.

Mongolia has an estimated 30 million sheep – more than New Zealand – but has until recently only managed to export a thin slice of its overall meat output. It hopes that will change as it taps overseas appetite for halal mutton from places such as Iran, which are forced to import due to limited local production.

Largely because of that kind of new demand, Mongolia’s sheep and goat meat shipments hit 2,601 tonnes in 2017, 11 times more than 2016. And while that was worth only around USD 8 million, industry officials say those volumes is likely just the start, with exports in the first-half of 2018 quadrupling year-on-year to 775.6 tonnes.

The mutton is then frozen and transported by truck through Russia and Kazakhstan, reaching Iran in about two weeks. (Reuters)