The Effect of Halal Awareness and Halal Certification on Interest in Buying Halal Products During Covid-19 Pandemic

−This study aims to determine the effect of halal awareness and halal certification on interest in buying halal products during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study used quantitative methods to collect data as many as 138 respondents. The results of this study were analyzed through validity, reliability, R square, T test and F test using SPSS version 22 as an analytical tool. Based on the test results, the results showed: halal awareness had a significant positive effect on buying interest in halal products. Halal certification has a significant positive effect on interest in buying halal products. The implications of this research are expected as a reference in order to measure the extent to which the object of this research is to increase awareness about halal products and knowledge of the use of halal certification in the products to be purchased.


INTRODUCTION
The basic needs of the household including clothing, food and housing, that the fulfillment is very diverse. A consumer especially for muslim in order to meet their needs must apply the precautionary principle. Based on lifestyle of muslim consumers, the fulfillment of food needs must involve consideration of many things that is different from meeting other needs. Effort to fulfill the need for food are not only based on appearance and taste but also about the halalness of the product. It's supported by the word of God in the letter Al-Baqarah verse 168: The verse above means that there are command of Allah SWT to humans for make everything on earth as halal food and good for comsumption in accordance with syaria and do not follow the footsteps of satan because satan is clear enemy to humans.
As a country with the largest Muslim population, Indonesia is the largest consumer of halal products (Ahmad, 2020). On the other hand, the society faced with the challenge of free trade where flooded with various product. In this case the product contains ingredients that are not necessarily halal. This make it important that the people should be careful in choosing food products in the market. Precautionary principle can be done by creating halal awareness and incresing knowledge about halal certification. As we know which products categorized as halal are not only seen from the type of material, but also about the proses and get in accordance with syaria. On the fact, the muslim's awareness creates various levels. It's used to determine the product to be consumed. A study conducted by Izzuddin (2018) said that halal awareness can increase the number of interest in buying halal product. It's because a muslim consumer who has a high awareness will be more interested to consuming halal product. Based on the statement above, it can be concluded that halal awareness encourages muslims to be more concerned about avoiding types of food which are not necessarily halal.
On the effort to choose a necessity product, there are important factor is halal certification, besides halal awareness factor. Halal certification is used to proff that we consumes are halal product. Halal certification is a written by food, cosmetic and drug evaluation institute of the indonesian ulema council (LPPOM MUI) with the aim of showing the level of halalness of product (Sheilla Chairunnisyah, 2017). This graph can be describe of increasing product that have been certified halal in 2012-2019 (Smesco, 2021) : The Highest level of entrepreneurs whoses have halal certification can describe with the garph above. The increase in the number of halal-certified product continued from 2012-2019. Even of November 5, 2021, the halal information system data stated shows that there were 31,529 enterpreneurs who had applied for halal certification. Based on this number, most of them are micro enterpreneurs who reached 19,209 or 60,92%. Halal certification can affect interest in buying halal products where the better halal certification, the better the interest in buying halal product. Interest is related to cognition, emotion and motivation to buy e product. It's affect by halal awareness and halal certification.
This study purpose to analyze the effect of halal awareness and halal certification on interest in buying halal product during covid-19 pandemic. The implications of this research are expected to be used as a guide for measuring the increase in halal awareness and the use of halal certification on the right product as a cause of choosing a product for muslim consumers. Research with a similar theme was carried out by Ahmad Izzuddin in 2018 with a research focus on the influence of halal labels, halal awareness and food ingredients on interest in buying culinary food (Izzuddin, 2018). Meanwhile, Kurnia Fitra Nanda in 2020 conducted a research focusing on the perception of the MUI halal label on the interest in buying food products among students (Nanda & Ikawati, 2020). Premi Wahyu Widyaningrum in 2019 also conducted research that focused on the effect of halal awareness labels, advertisements and celebrity endorsers on the interest in purchasing cosmetics through perception variables as mediating (Widyaningrum, 2019). Savitri Hendradewi in 2021 conducted a study on the effect of halal awareness and halal labels on the interest in buying Korean instant noodles among schoolchildren in Jakarta (Hendradewi et al., 2021). Meanwhile, Ferica Aprilia conducted research focusing on the analysis of halal awareness which was used as an intervening variable on the effect of halal certification on interest in buying halal cosmetics in Pemalang district (Aprilia & Saraswati, 2021).
So based on the previous research, there are differences in focus. Then in this study, although it raised the same theme, namely halal awareness and halal certification, this time the researchers emphasized their influence on interest in buying halal products during the time of the covid-19 pandemic. So that it produces a novelty in this paper as well as a comparison for further research.

METHOD
This type of research is quantitative research. Data collection is done through online media. Online data collection was carried out through social media and social network links to collect original responses and improve the accuracy of research result. Relevant quisionnaries and criteria of eligible respondents were considered for fther study. The population of this study is muslim consumers who have interest of halal products. The sample of this study amounted to 138 respondents. The focus of the research is to analyzed the effect of halal awareness and halal certification on interest in buying halal product during covid-19 pandemic. The measure scale used in this study is an interval scale and the type of scale used is a likert scale with a scale of 5. The statistical test of this study used SPSS 22 version, the research instrument was tedted with validity and reliability test to ensure all statement items in the questionnare were valid and reliable.

Interest
Interest accroding to (Aprilia & Saraswati, 2021), is defined as a customer's tendency to make a purchase action. It's can be measure through the level of possibility consumer's purchasing activities. Kotler and Keller (in Adi, 2015) defined interest is considered the behavior of cunsumers who desire to use, consume and choose the type of product. Likewise Samuel and Wijaya (in Muslimah et al., 2018) f ound the result that a consumer's buying interest was caused by 3 things: first, the stimulus to encourage action that had an impact on purchasing activities. Second, awareness that enters the mind and can be influenced by services or product. Third, the search for internal information whose source is obtain from the personality. In this study, interest is described as being influenced by halal awareness and halal certification.

Halal Awareness
Awareness is defined as experienced by a person on his own situatio. Halal awareness is easy to know based on muslim's knowledge about the meaning of halal and how the slaughter process accordance with syaria. Halal awareness influence people to prioritize consuming halal food (Waskito, 2015)

Halal Certification
Fatwa by MUI regarding halal certificates that ensure the halalness of a product and conformity with syaria (Syafrida, 2016). In fact, halal certificate is used as a provision in the decision to attach a halal label on a product. The existance of this certificate is a step forward in providing halal assurance for the product. Halal certification in Indonesia which is borne by the indonesian ulema council (MUI) based on the laws and regulations relating to the halalness of a food includes: UU No. 23 1992 regulates about health, UU No. 7 1996 regulates about product, UU No.8 199 regulated about cunsumer protection, etc. The purpose of halal product certification is in the context of protecting a muslim against haram food, explaining to consumers related to legal certain;y that the product is truly in accordance with syaria and really makes it easy for the muslim csociety to choose foos and drink (Muslimah et al., 2018).

Hypothesis
Thus, the hypothesis that needs to be proven is: H1: There is a positive effect of halal awareness on interest in buying halal products during the covid-19 pandemic H2: There is a positive effect of halal certification on interest in buying halal products during the covid-19 pandemic In the table 1 it is found that the data analysis was obtained by compare between the calculated r value and the r table value is 0.1672 and significance level is 0,05. This result of all items on each variable show that the r value > r table value. Thus, it can be concluded that the indicators used in this study are able to explain the independen variables studied. So the conclusion is that it has meet the requirements of validity  Table 3. R-Square R-square is used to evaluate the fit of the model in the structural model test between latent variables. Based on the analysis result obtained the adjusted R square value is 0,608. This statement means that the variation of the independent variable can describe the dependent variable in 60,8% while the value of 39,2% are described in other variables outside the study. This means that the model made indicates a good model.

Table 4. Value of F Test
Based on the result of data processing, the value of F statistic is 107.110 with the value of significance is 0,000 < 0,05 which means that interest in buying halal product (Y) can be influenced by halal awareness (X1) and halal certification (X2) with simultaneously. Based on the result of data processing, the value of t statistic for halal awareness is 5.252 > t table (1,96) with the value of significance is 0,000 < 0,05. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant influence of halal awareness on interest in buying halal product. Likewise t statistic for halal certification is 5.396 > t table (1,96) with the value of significance is 0,000 < 0,05. Thus, it can be concluded that there is a significant influence of halal certification on interest in buying halal product.

Effect of Halal Awareness on Interest in Buying Halal Product
Halal awareness is the hope for Muslim consumers in Indonesia. Because with high halal awareness, it is hoped that it will encourage interest in buying halal products. Where in the end it is hoped that halalness will become an absolute thing for producers for all types of products aimed at Muslim consumers (Nikmatul Rohmah, 2020). Based on the result of data processing, the value of t statistic for halal awareness is 5.252 > t table (1,96) with the value of significance is 0,000 < 0,05 so that H1 is accepted. Thus, it can be concluded that there is significant effect of halal awareness on interest. A positive coefficient indicate the better the halal awareness, the better interest will be. These result are supported by research conducted by Aprilia (2021) and Faturohman (2019), which state that halal awareness has an important role in influencing interest on buying halal product. Likewise with research conducted by Kurniawan (2018) and Izzuddin (2018) which states that the impression of halal awareness has positive on interest on buying the halal product.

Effect of Halal Certification on Interest in Buying Halal Product
Halal certification is a security guarantee for Muslims to consume food products in accordance with Islamic teachings. For this reason, it is important to consider this aspect to determine interest in buying halal products which will later be used as consumption products (Waskito, 2015). Based on the result of data processing, t statistic for halal certification is 5.396 > t table (1,96) with the value of significance is 0,000 < 0,05 so that H2 is accepted. Thus, it can be concluded that there is significant effect of halal certification on interest. A positive coefficient indicate the better the halal certification, the better interest will be. These result are supported by research conducted by Setyaningsih (2019) and Faturohman (2019), which state that halal certification has an important role in influencing interest on