Vancouver, Canada – As the kosher food industry continues to grow annually, one Canadian kashrus agency has decided to add an extra requirement to their kashrus certification status: food safety standards.
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The new kashrus certification will be called “Kosher Check” and is the brainchild of Rabbi Avraham Feigelstock of Vancouver’s BC Kosher.
“For many years at BC Kosher we have put into all our client contracts that they have to adhere to all applicable government and safety regulations,” Richard Wood, business manager of Kosher Check, told VIN News. “Under the new Kosher Check we are elevating the status for safety going beyond the minimum levels that the government requires.”
Wood noted that 34 percent of those who buy kosher products do so because they feel it guarantees them a higher level of safety.
“Consumers want to know that there is some kind of safety program in place because there have been many scares over the years. A while ago there was a non-kosher slaughterhouse in Canada that was closed because of an e. coli outbreak and a few years ago there was a peanut scare in the Eastern United States,” said Wood.
In order for a product to be certified by Kosher Check it would have to be compliant with the Hazard Awareness Critical Control Points program, the Global Food Standard Initiative, British Retail Council and the Foundation for Food Safety Certification 22000, among others.
A report published in the New York Times stated that only 15 percent of kosher consumers buy kosher for religious reasons with quality and healthfulness being the two most important factors in kosher food purchases.
First some Rabbis said that they would not certify an event with only one bar. “That would not be tzinus!”
Then some said they would only certify when the producer commits to ‘The Humane Treatment of all Living Creatures”
Some Rabbis supports “Green and Recycling”
At least one organization now declares that any food product that contains GMOs is no longer eligible to be certified as kosher.
Now one kashrus agency is now saying that to be certified it needs to be compliant with
Food safety standands.
So, now the Rabbis need to be trained and certified by the HACCP? These food safety and the GMO-people already have their seals on the products labels.
Food safety and animal cruelty should be regulated by the government, not by Rabbis. And while I believe in recycling, I believe the only involvement of the Rabbonim with “green” should be advocating environment concerns on the pulpit.
IMHO, let’s make sure that the Rabbis and mashgiam set and meet minimal standards. Based on halacha, not by some temporal whim. Chumras should be based on stringencies from the Shulchan Oruch, not by politics. Let’s make sure that the kosher seals mean that it is kosher!
It sounds to me that his “brainchild” can turn into a nightmare. He’ll probably get sued if a company under his Hashgocho has any heath issue with their products. People will claim that he is being relied upon to prevent those problems, along with maintaining Kashrus standards.
Let’s just go back to the beginning and be vegetarians. If one must eat meat then just follow what it says in Va’Yikra.
Another way to charge more.
Well, for many years now (since a few food hygiene scandals in kosher restaurants) the London Beth Din has made a local authority food hygiene course mandatory for all their mashgichim.
Think about it: Is it worth the inevitable chilul Hashem trying to exercise damage control post facto? One bad case gives all kosher establishments a bad name.