Alert: Food Fraud and Kashrut - Pork in your milk?

We've talked about this before (such as this piece: Still think you can trust the fish counter?), but CNN has a new piece today, "Food Fraud on the Rise," highlighting the problem of substitution of one food for another on the market.

This has the potential to cause significant kashrut problems, both for Pesach and year-round. Examples of concerns include:

* Substitution of one kind of fish for another, so that one may not actually be eating kosher fish;
* Addition of grape juice to pomegranate juice, creating stam yeinam problems;
* Addition of corn syrup to honey, creating Pesach problems for those who avoid kitniyos.

Excerpt from the article:

The new records show that the most commonly fraudulent products are olive oil, milk, saffron, honey and coffee.
Tea, fish, clouding agents (used in fruit juices, like lemon, to make products look freshly squeezed), maple syrup and spices (turmeric, black pepper and chili pepper) were also top imposters.
Most of the reported food fraud was committed by producers adding fillers (i.e. other plant leaves to tea leaves), mixing in less expensive spices with high value spices or watering down liquids. Olive oils were often replaced and/or diluted with cheaper vegetable oils. Clouding agents were found in 877 food products from 315 different companies. Another popular target: Pomegranate juice, often made with grape skins and grape and pear juices.

The article also points the reader to a Food Fraud Database.

The first search I did there was for milk; I have long understood that there was no history of diluting cow milk with pig milk in the United States, but I wanted to check.

I'm not sure of what this means, but I found a record here, from 2012, of adulteration with "Milk from non-authentic animal species". I wonder what that means... And another report on the site identifies pork lard in milk powder! [Other reports have goat milk and water buffalo milk and "cow tallow" mixed in.] Requiring a hechsher on milk and milk powder is looking wise right now...

UPDATE: I stand corrected regarding the paragraph above; the findings mentioned in the previous paragraph include incidents from outside the US, as well as academic studies in which impurities were added for the sake of detection. I was duped by the fact that the site is run by the "US Pharmacopieal Convention" and the fact that I also include reports from the field.

Moral of the story: Even if an apparently simple product shouldn't require a hechsher (kosher certification by an outside supervisor), it may need it due to industry fraud.

Still think you can trust the fish counter?

In my days as a Rav haMachshir [head of a kosher supervision agency], I heard quite a few people say they could buy filleted, skinned fish at the fish counter at their local supermarket, trusting the store management to be honest because of the risk they would run in playing games.

Of course, even if the fish is the right fish, there still are problems from non-kosher fish residue on the equipment, and from the common practice of leaving all of the fish in buckets overnight, leaking brine on each other.

But trusting the fish counter is, itself, problematic. This in from ABC News this past week:

Investigation Uncovers Rampant Fish Fraud

A new investigation provides fresh evidence that restaurants and markets continue to dupe seafood lovers into paying top dollar for low-grade fish.

As part of a special “Fishy Business” series, the Boston Globe spent five months buying fish from dozens of establishments throughout Massachusetts and sending the samples off to a lab in Canada. DNA tests found 48 percent of the fish had been mislabeled as a more expensive type of fish.

Fish samples were gathered from 134 restaurants, grocery stores and seafood markets, and the results were staggering. Every one of 23 white tuna samples tested turned out to be something other than tuna. In most cases the fish labeled tuna was escolar, which the Globe said was “nicknamed the Ex-Lax of fish by some in the industry for the digestion problems it can cause.”

Milk remains unique in its acceptability without kosher supervision in North America, because there is no incentive for milk producers and distributors to cheat - it would be ridiculously counterproductive for them to raise pigs and milk them. But many other products, including products people take for granted, are often adulterated or outright switched with inexpensive substitutes. Hence the need for hashgachah.

Ode to a local Vaad haKashrut (kosher supervision agency) and a local Kosher Bakery

Our Jewish Federation generously supports our local vaad hakashrut (kosher supervision agency), the Lehigh Valley Kashrut Commission, or LVKC. Tonight I presented our annual funding request before the Federation's Allocations Committee, and preparing that request reminded me of why local kashrut certifiers and local kosher bakeries are important.

A local vaad supervises the little supermarket bakery. Therefore:
• Kids from non-observant families can have a birthday party with a kosher cake, and everyone can eat;
• Visitors to town can find fresh kosher bread and not buy the packaged, chemical-treated stuff;
• Kosher-observant Jews visiting relatives can find food.

Without that bakery, all of the above becomes harder. Further, the community cannot grow, because outsiders perceive it to be a backwater.

The local bakery keeps the Jewish community going. And so does the Vaad - in the bakery, and beyond:
• A local vaad provides assistance to a college Hillel seeking to make kosher food available, or to offer housing with a kosher kitchen;
• A local vaad answers people’s questions and does research on commercial kashrus, using the database of knowledge and connections it has developed in the commercial realm;
• A local vaad provides supervision for community-wide events, so that they can truly be community-wide;
• A local vaad holds kashrut awareness programs for people who would never go to oukosher.org or star-k.org.

There’s more, too, but that’s what came to mind tonight as I prepared our report for the Federation.

The challenge is that as the major kashrut certifiers – OU, Star-K, Chof-K etc – expand, the local kashrut certifier faces the loss of key businesses. National organizations take over major facilities, the ones which can provide the greatest income for the least actual supervision.

Whether these businesses pay so much as a gesture of corporate responsibility to the community, or whether it’s just because they’re used to large numbers, those businesses often supply income which helps subsidize supervision for smaller, cash-poorer businesses. We can certify a small operation at zero margin, and we can subsidize supervision of community non-profits, because of a large bottling company that gives us more dollars than we need to pay our supervisor.

So when a local business goes with a national supervision, that damages the local vaad – and the result can be catastrophic for a community. (I also discussed this somewhat here.)

The national and international organizations are important. The local orgs even depend on them, because all of the ingredients coming into our local facilities are produced under those broader certifications. But let’s not forget the work done by the locals, and the way that they, and their supermarket bakeries, keep small Jewish communities going.

The Ugly Side of Kashrus Recommendations

Disclaimer: The ugly business between the Vaad of Queens and Streits is the trigger for this post, but let me say outright that I know nothing special about that case, and that I continue to tell people locally that they should feel comfortable using Streits for Pesach.

As I read the explanations for why the Vaad of Queens needed to cease recommending Streits this year, I am reminded of the old line about not wanting to see legislation or politics or sausage being made. The same may well go for kashrus recommendations.

But having said that, I must add that the problem they face at the Vaad - and at any Vaad - is a huge one: How do you responsibly recommend someone else's certification, without knowing their operation?

I have been head of a small vaad hakashrus for the past eight years, and with the help of wonderful mashgichim we've faced many difficult challenges, but I find few situations harder to handle than the dreaded question, “What do you think of Rabbi Ploni's certification, the Sun-K?" (Note: This certification does not exist. I think.)

Some argue for chezkat kashrut - the idea that, within halachah, everyone who is Shabbat-observant is assumed to be credible until we find out otherwise. This, though, is halachically incorrect.

Chezkat kashrut refers to immunity from suspicion of malfeasance; I can trust that a Jew who observes Shabbat will not knowingly violate the laws of kashrut. But if the Sun-K and I have different understandings of what "kashrut" requires - such as if we differ on how often a mashgiach (supervisor) should visit a plant - then all bets are off.

So here's how the process generally goes:

Step 1 - Do I know anything myself?
The answer, generally, is, “Absolutely nothing.” How could I know what the Sun-K does at their plants, short of visiting those plants myself? Sorry, I don't have a travel budget to cover that.

Even if I know the certifying rabbi personally, that may not be enough; I know that local vaadim often need to accept certain unusual leniencies for the sake of their communities, or because of grandfathered certifications, and how can I know that this is not the case with that certification?

This is a two-way street, of course: I would not want anyone to accept my certification because they went to yeshiva with me, because I created WebShas, or because of any other irrelevant factor - let them find out the specifics of the certification, and then go from there.


Step 2 - Check with people I trust
So I call or email people I trust, who have a better handle on the Sun-K’s operation or the particular product in question, and they tell me whatever they can tell me. On that basis, sometimes, I can answer the questioner.

But often that information is insufficient, because the people I call don’t have any better clue. So now what do I do? I still need to provide an answer! So-and-so wants to hire a caterer, but I can’t find anyone who knows anything. A bakery wants to bring in a product certified by the Sun-K – what can I tell them?


Step 3 - Contact the Rabbi in question
This comes third, rather than first, because (1) I don't want to get into a personal war with someone if I choose not to recommend the certification, and (2) These inquiries tend to be useless.

I call Rabbi Ploni of the Sun-K, who, invariably, reassures me that everything is on the up-and-up, even better than what I do in my own vaad.

“Do I know you from Lakewood?” he name-drops.
“The OU used to certify my plant; they stopped because the company didn’t want to pay their fee, but I haven’t changed a thing. Really.”
“I have a bigger beard than you.” (Yes, a certifying rabbi really said that to me.)

So I try to ask penetrating questions:
* How often do you visit the plant? Do you use full-time mashgichim (supervisors)?
* Do you accept X item (ie gelatin, unchecked strawberries, etc)?
* Do they prepare milchig and pareve in the same plant?
* Where did your mashgichim learn?
* Do you, your mashgichim, your in-laws or their in-laws like Lipa?

All right, just kidding on that last one.

But these questions are really just shots in the dark; every answer could be technically right, and the recommendation could still be wrong. Sometimes I can get a vibe in the course of the conversation, but it's generally just not helpful. The best I can hope for is an invitation to visit the plant itself, but even then, how do I know what happens the month before that visit, or the month afterward?


The bottom line: After these three steps, I'm often still stuck, and that's the way it is; I have no other options. It's not politics, and it's certainly not money (I am a volunteer for our Vaad, which barely breaks even and then only thanks to our Federation's help); it's just the absence of a good investigative mechanism.

So what do I tell the questioner? "I'm sorry, but I don't know enough to say."

This has led to all sorts of fun. I've had kosher certifiers call me up and use rather un-kosher language on the phone with me. I've received "lawyer letters" threatening all sorts of damage. Etc.

But, at the end of the day, I can't approve something unless I feel confident that I know it's all right. My word means too much to me to do otherwise.

OU, OK, Star-K, Kof-K… and LVKC

Running a small Vaad haKashrus (kashrut certification agency - like my own LVKC) is, generally, un-fun:
Your clientele rarely see a significance bump in their business from kashrut, and so you don’t charge much, and you need to fundraise to pay your mashgichim. (Our Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley is uncommonly generous, thank Gd.)
You have to honestly inform clients that if they hope to market beyond the region, they would be better off sporting a better-known logo.
And you know that when visitors come to your area, or when people see your products on the shelf in New York, the presumption for an unknown hechsher (kosher certification agency) is – and not without reason - guilty until proven innocent.

Recently, the larger organizations – particularly OU and Star-K – made a commitment to help local vaadim. They recognize our importance for local communities, they don’t want to take over our business entirely (although we often wish they would…), and so they are determined to help us succeed.

To their credit, OU and Star-K have taken a step in this direction: Both of them now run occasional conference calls on pressing kashrut issues. Also to their credit, some of their personnel are very good at returning phone calls and giving practical advice.

At the same time, here are three ways in which you, our big brothers, cound increase your assistance:

1) Don’t try to take our client businesses for yourselves.
Faced with a bakery which wanted to push the envelope on some of our standards, we turned to a kashrus administrator with one of the abovementioned agencies for help. His answer: “Tell them to apply to us for certification.” When pressed, he offered to hire our mashgiach to do the on-site supervision on behalf of his agency. This is not what I would call helpful.

[Update (7/31/08): The kashrus administrator involved saw this post and contacted me to clarify. He was under the impression that the business had wanted his national certification, and this was why he had made this offer. I am grateful for the clarification.]

This isn’t an isolated incident. We have had a few of the national agencies actively solicit our businesses… including one client which we would have been happy to see them take, given that they never paid us a dime.

It’s true that we tell businesses with national aspirations that they should go with the big names – but that doesn’t mean we need you to come knocking on their doors for us.


2) Return our calls.
As I said, some of the rabbis at OU and Star-K are great with this. Others, with some of the other agencies, are less stellar.

We supervise a supermarket bakery. A certain wholesaler wanted to supply our bakery, and was certified by a national organization. We wanted the right to make random spot checks of our own in that bakery. The certifying agency agreed – but when it came time to visit, we were blocked. Now they don’t return my calls. This is not helpful, and we will likely end up banning their product soon, if I don’t receive a call back.

It’s really just common courtesy, of course.


3) Share information.
Some of you big agencies are very good with this, but others among you, sad to say, stonewall.

We were working with an ice cream franchise, part of a chain with many stores under a national agency. Rather than re-invent the wheel, we contacted the national agency for its list of ingredients and their supervisions – and got nowhere.

My five-year old knows how to share, but you do not.

4) Legal counsel
Oh, and big guys, one other thing: Could you share your legal department with us?

I’m sitting on scare letters from several rabbis because our businesses won’t use their products. You must get these all the time. If you wouldn’t mind sending your attorneys down here to help out, that would be great. Thanks!