Today there are over a quarter of a million Muslims in Australia made up from most Muslim countries of the world, and their Australian-born children and grandchildren. Initially these people came from Muslim fisherman from Indonesia and later on, from Afghan camel drivers who arrived in 1860, who assisted in European settlement. These numbers grew rapidly with large scale immigration after the Second World War. The Muslim community has become an integral and important part of the multicultural Australian community.

Australia is a major exporter of meat and other food products, which constitute a major share of its export earnings. The national organisation of Islam and Muslim communities in Australia is the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) and works across a number of areas such as health, education and food. It established processes on a national scale in the early 1970's to assist the meat industry to produce halal products for what turned out to be Australia's main sheep meat markets of the Middle East. Since that time, Australian halal food has gained the acceptance of importing countries and consumers from around the globe.

The wider food industry in Australia has now adopted acceptable practices, which allows products to be certified as being Halal. AFIC, along with a number of other certifying organisations, has continued to play a very important role in the supervision and certification of Halal products in the Australian meat and food industry. Ongoing work is carried out to expand the network of countries to agree on uniform international standards for regulating Halal meat and food products. This Directory is a result of the on-going co-operation of the Halal certifying organisations contained in it.