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Company Facts

Med-Diet, Inc., the parent company of Halal Healthy, is a privately held Minnesota (US) company that was founded by Don Tymchuck in 1980 to provide specialty food products for medical conditions requiring a major change in diet.

From its beginning Med-Diet has maintained a “Continuum of Care” policy. Virtually any product it carries can be obtained no matter where within the healthcare system the person in need resides. So it works with major broadline foodservice distributors to supply hospital and nursing home facilities while maintaining online stores for at-home customers.

Initially its products were for gluten free and renal failure diets, which were developed internally. Now it offers a wide assortment of foods and equipment such as low sodium, low fat, gluten free, sugar free, peanut free, low amino acid, high protein, organic, adaptive feeding equipment, disaster meals, bowel management, bariatric surgery and now, Halal, that come from a wide collection of manufacturers.

In the early 1990’s, Med-Diet formed an alliance with a major foodservice distributor to provide specialty products to its customers. This was so successful that it formed similar relationships with other large distributors. In 2007 Med-Diet created a division, Foodservice Express, to focus exclusively on the foodservice business. In 2009 it fulfilled orders to over 12,000 hospital, nursing home, college, and restaurant kitchens.

Because Med-Diet was known for solving difficult dietary problems it received requests from hospitals to offer Muslim patients some appropriate alternatives to vegetarian meals. During the market research, the most frequent comment heard from Muslims was that they didn’t trust the foods currently available. Med-Diet also learned from the foodservice operators that having a halal symbol on the package would be critical in building trust, especially since they are not educated in the rules of halal. So Med-Diet worked closely with the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA) to learn the rules of the certifying process. This led to the decision to carry only Naturally Halal foods (such as rice, unprocessed fruit and nuts) and 100% Halal Certified products monitored by legitimate third party inspectors. To boost consumer confidence Med-Diet provides copies of the halal certificates on its relevant websites.

Through its unique partnerships with the largest foodservice distributors Med-Diet is working to open up many other foodservice venues to halal, including schools & colleges, restaurants, recreation/leisure/camps, government and military facilities and company cafeterias.