kashrut

Kosher foods are branching out

From kimchi to cast iron, more than 300 new products were on display at this year’s Kosher Fest. (photo by Dave Gordon)

At Kosherfest this year, there were such traditional Jewish staples as gefilte fish, matzot, bagels and cured meats. But cauliflower pizza crusts, organic tequila, vegan cheeses, kimchi and date-seed coffee were among 300 new products on display.

The two-day event in New Jersey was the 31st annual convention. It showed that kosher food does not necessarily hail from countries with large Jewish populations. In the hopes of grabbing a slice of the market, exhibitors came from around the world, including from South Korea, Australia, Italy, Brazil, Mexico and the Netherlands.

From Pakistan, Adnan Pirzada, the general manager of Dewan Sugar Mills, was exhibiting kosher-certified ethanol for companies to use in beverages and mouthwashes. Currently, they export to 30 countries and are seeking U.S. consumers. The certification is new to the 15-year old company, which produces 125,000 litres of ethanol a day.

“We wanted to tell people that there’s nothing not kosher that ever comes in contact with what we make,” he said, noting that “sometimes, non-kosher ingredients can be in foods and people not know it.”

An example of that came from Dakshin Thilina, the director of Nexpo Conversion, makers of kosher dried coconut milk powder and coconut oil in Sri Lanka. Nexpo supplies an Australian ice cream manufacturer and an organic chocolate manufacturer, and hopes to find U.S. distribution.

“There are three big players in Sri Lanka [in the coconut industry] and they all use sodium caseinate, an animal-based product, and that makes it non-kosher,” he said. “So, now, with vegan, organic and other aspects that make these popular, we needed to enter the market in a different way. We cut out the sodium caseinate and went with a pure organic powder. Without that component, it’s essentially lactose-free – the allergies people suffer from due to milk-based products is out and, because it’s non-dairy, kosher Jews can use it anytime, alongside meat.”

In Dubai, kosher catering is a one-woman show, and she was at Kosherfest.

Elli Kriel, a South African expat of seven years who lives in Dubai, began her company recently. “I was producing kosher food for our family and people started reaching out to me,” she said. “Travelers in particular, moving through the city, needed kosher food. I used to invite them to eat in our home, but I realized, as more and more people began reaching out, I was in a good position to offer kosher catering.”

She said Elli’s Kosher Kitchen’s launch was bolstered by the United Arab Emirates’ Year of Tolerance, announced in February, “a government initiative promoting the idea of diversity within the UAE and the tolerance for all religions and races.” It was then, she added, that the Jewish community was formally recognized and, “at that moment, I thought it was perfect to step forward.” There are about 150 people in the Jewish community, with tourists receiving food each day, she said.

photo - Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product — Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product. *(photo by Dave Gordon)*

Kosherfest attracted about 6,000 attendees this fall, some 800 more than last year. With 360 exhibitors, roughly 300 products on the floor had been introduced within the last 12 months, said organizers.

A recent Quartz article elaborated that it is “fairly astounding that more than 40% of the country’s [United States’] new packaged food and beverage products in 2014 are labeled as being kosher, while it was on only 27% of packaged foods in 2009.”

Explanations for this include the public’s desire for assurance that a product does not include certain allergens, or traces of allergens, such as shellfish. Or an assurance that a product is vegetarian or vegan, as in the example of Oreo cookies, that once contained lard, prior to the producers’ switch to kosher.

Another example of food that contains ingredients that may surprise some consumers is cheese. Most cheeses contain enzymes and rennet (animal-derived), but the Sheese line uses coconut oil, palm oil and other vegan replacements. Hailing from Scotland’s Isle of Bute, the “cheese” is lactose-free, vegan, kosher, cholesterol-free and gluten-free, appealing to various dietary needs.

In light of bug infestations in dozens of supermarket vegetables and the challenge of washing them thoroughly so as not to ingest these non-kosher critters, Boston-based Fresh Box Farms came to Kosherfest with a solution. They’re growing and selling leafy greens that are hydroponically grown in a triple-sealed environment, using no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. “It’s free of any pests. And we don’t wash our product, and the consumer doesn’t need to either,” said Jacqueline Hynes, senior marketing officer.

An online essay by Star-K, a kosher certification agency in Maryland, noted that some “35 million non-Jewish consumers of kosher products” buy them because of health and food safety concerns, “as a trustworthy means of ensuring that these criteria are being addressed.” Food production companies, it says, are increasing their lines of certified products, due to “more general cultural anxiety about industrialization of the food supply.”

Menachem Lubinsky, chief executive officer of Lubicom, the organizer of the event, said kosher foods today appeal to a “more health-conscious consumer. Now, it’s become almost fashionable to have vegan or gluten-free, so why not kosher? They don’t want any customer to be left out.”

By 2025, the kosher industry will reach some $25 billion US in sales a year, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Not everything exhibited at Kosherfest was a food product. One company sold kosher cast-iron cookware. Isaac Salem, president of New York-based IKO Imports, said their cookware differentiates itself from other such products, as its non-stick “seasoning” is created with a proprietary plant-derived oil base, rather than the typical animal fat, “which obviously can come from non-kosher sources.” He said their cookware holds up against competitors, and appeals to vegans, as well.

Consumers who keep kosher will also be able to enjoy something they’ve never had before. Promised Land Beverage Company’s Exodus Hopped Cider does not contain any leavened products or grains; rather, it has fermented apples and hops, add could double as a kind of beer.

“Now you can have beer at the seder,” said Yoni Schwartz, company president, “something unimaginable in the past.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Team Kosher at work

Team Kosher are Marat Dreyshner and Barbi Braude. (photos from Dreyshner and Braude, respectively)

Within three months of its launch, more than 700 people in the Greater Vancouver area had signed up to receive Team Kosher Vancouver’s weekly e-publication. The people behind the initiative, Barbi Braude and Marat Dreyshner, say they’re just getting started.

The weekly newsletter primarily features information on kosher products available at the Marine Drive location of Real Canadian Superstore. It highlights specials and new products, and includes community announcements and recipes.

“This is a community-based service,” said Braude. “We would like to use our newsletter to inform the community of events as well as using it as an educational tool about kashrut.”

Braude maintains that people think keeping kosher is difficult and expensive and Team Kosher wishes to change people’s minds by showing them the plentiful, affordable and healthy options available at Superstore. “It’s easy to know what’s in the store with this weekly newsletter,” she said.

Before the e-initiative, Dreyshner – who works at the Marine Drive location – said he spent hours every week answering individual inquiries via text, phone and email. “I wanted a way to reach the community as a whole rather than answering individual questions and, after several conversations with Barbi, Team Kosher was born.”

Dreyshner has been the bakery and grocery supervisor for kosher products at Superstore for several years. He orders the products, acts as mashgiach (kashrut supervisor) and produces a line of freshly baked goods – “I’m very proud of my hand-rolled sourdough bagels that have been at Superstore for a number of years now,” he said.

Ensuring that the kosher section – which is, coincidentally, in Aisle 18 – is stocked with the products people want is a complicated task. Dreyshner collaborates with several vendors in Eastern Canada, New York and Israel to get the products in and personally stocks the shelves. He said the support of former store manager Remo Mastropieri and current store manager Carlo Fierro has enabled the kosher program at the Marine Drive Superstore to grow and thrive.

The number and variety of products continues to increase, especially around the holidays. Braude said the store devotes a section right at the entrance to special holiday food. At Purim, there was a selection of hamantashen and she is anticipating more than 200 products for Passover.

To reach more Jews, Dreyshner advises other Loblaws-owned stores in Metro Vancouver on what kosher products to carry. But the local Jewish community is not the only target for this team.

“We have reached out to the Seventh Day Adventists and are looking at vegan associations. We provide a service to kosher visitors and others with dietary challenges,” explained Braude.

She said that, because kashrut supervision is an extra level of oversight, many people feel kosher food is safer, healthier and of higher quality. Many of the products that come from Israel meet the needs of vegans and, she said, when products are labeled parve, those with dairy issues can rest assured the item is dairy-free.

As Team Kosher continues to grow its database and reaches more people, Dreyshner and Braude want feedback from the community.

“I stress to people that they can reach out to me to make sure we have products at the store they want instead of making an unnecessary trip to find their favourite products out of stock,” said Dreyshner.

“We care about the Jewish community and wanted to work to get the word out that Superstore is making a huge effort to bring our community high-quality, specialty kosher products,” said Braude. “Superstore is very involved with a variety of events in our community and the whole community needs to appreciate that because we all benefit.”

With Passover approaching, Dreyshner added, “We look forward to continuing to provide the best resource for kosher food and holiday specialties.”

For more information or to sign up for the Team Kosher weekly newsletter, contact [email protected], follow them on Instagram or sign up with Kosher Chef on Facebook.

Michelle Dodek is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.

Being kosher in today’s world

On Dec. 7, Temple Sholom Sisterhood hosted a discussion on the relationship, history and relevance of today’s kosher practices. The panel aimed to “explore, broaden and in some cases challenge the term kashrut” and “explore integrating values such as ethics, community and spirituality as it relates to food.”

The panelists were Rabbi Lindsey bat Joseph, executive director of the Centre for Jewish Excellence; Michael Schwartz, director of community engagement at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia; and Noam Dolgin, a Jewish environmental educator and “sustainable realtor.”

As participants ate baked organic apples – sourced locally and made with gluten-free oats – Dolgin began at the beginning, discussing the Garden of Eden and asking the audience to name the first mitzvah (commandment) given to human beings alone. Although many people think it was “be fruitful and multiply,” that commandment was given to animals as well. The first human commandment, Dolgin said, was to “work and protect” the garden. After leaving the hunter-gatherer society of the garden, we became farmers able to produce surplus food and wealth, he explained, and so came the laws around our relationship to the land and to other people, which aimed to promote justice towards the earth and to each other.

Dolgin gave an overview of the development of Jewish law in relation to land, animals and people, touching on such core rabbinic laws as ba’al tashchit (do not waste) and ba’al tzarei chayyim (do not be cruel to animals). Dolgin said, although there are biblical laws protecting the land, there has been a shift in recent years from an emphasis on immediate human concerns – “don’t pollute upwind,” for example – to deeper ecological concerns, such as “don’t pollute at all.”

Schwartz spoke about how Jewish culinary traditions go beyond the legalities of kashrut. He focused on the home as the locus of cultural preservation, and noted the museum’s recent initiative to collect and share Jewish cultural stories around food. As part of this project, he said, one Jewish woman talked of her memories of food from Second World War-era Bangalore, India; another spoke of her Mizrahi Jewish family who had lived in China for years and were more comfortable in Vancouver’s Chinatown than in other parts of the city, including Jewish institutions.

Schwartz also discussed efforts to bring Jewish ethics to bear on food, describing the community’s creation of a food bank, and of other food-justice-related organizations.

“The alert among you will notice that I have made it this far into my talk without mentioning the word kosher,” he said. “That is not an accident. The reason for this is that I wanted to demonstrate that there are many ways that food can preserve our identity and inform our morals.”

Rounding out the discussion, bat Joseph explored the architecture of kosher law and the way it was built out of biblical law. She explained how kosher laws are traditionally considered to be transrational, or beyond human understanding. She said, despite our not understanding the details, the Torah suggests two primary purposes of kashrut: to make us distinct from the nations around us and to promote a holy lifestyle, to encourage mindfulness and “a sense of priestliness in the most mundane things.” She debunked the commonly held idea that kosher laws may have had a connection to health.

A wide-ranging question-and-answer period included humourous stories of trying to live kosher, different family traditions, and the struggle to balance inclusivity both among Jews and between Jews and non-Jews while observing kashrut.

Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He writes regularly for the Forward and All That Is Interesting, and has been published in Religion Dispatches, Situate Magazine, Tikkun and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.

Kosher food abounds

Kimchi seems to be the latest kosher craze. Here, Yeun Sun Shin, manager of South Korea’s Dongbangfood Oil Co. Ltd., shows off some of the company’s products at Kosherfest, which took place Nov. 15-16 in New Jersey. (photo by Dave Gordon)

Jewish fare extends well beyond the traditional Ashkenazi knish, kneidlach and kugel. Kimchi is the latest kosher craze, at least evidenced by the throngs of those who sampled it at Kosherfest, the annual food exhibition, which this year took place Nov. 15-16, at Meadowlands Exposition Centre in New Jersey.

For the uninitiated, the Korean staple is a cabbage-based food that contains white radish and spices.

Kosher-certified Koko’s line also includes gochujang (fermented red pepper paste) and doenjang (fermented soybean paste). Ziporah Rothkopf, Koko’s chief executive officer, not only boasted that her creations were the first of their kind in the kosher world, but that they were also among Kosherfest’s “best product award-winners,” and that she matched mainstream kimchi’s flavorings without including the usual shrimp brine.

Kosherfest, explains its website, “gives manufacturers, distributors and suppliers of kosher-certified products and services the opportunity to reach thousands of mainstream and independent kosher trade buyers from across the globe.”

The exhibition hall contained the expected offerings, but with a twist: hummus, including chocolate and orange-flavored; myriad wines, including ones called Moses and Unorthodox; artisan cheeses galore; endless new fruit beverages and sweets. There was even kosher toothpaste, SprinJene, which, unlike other toothpastes, say its spokespeople, doesn’t contain traces of animal enzymes, a no-no in the kosher world. (Non-Orthodox Judaism allows the consumption of any toothpaste.)

Nearly 300 exhibitors and companies were represented from around the world, including South Africa, Sri Lanka, Great Britain, Canada, Japan, Costa Rica, Korea, Czech Republic, Ukraine and, of course, the United States.

From the Philippines, FOCP presented organic coconut products, LTA Foods presented banana chips. From India came Lalah’s tamarind products, Eastern spices and Nila nuts.

Australia’s MC Foods came to show off their boutique salad dressings and marinades, with the hope of finding a distributor in the Americas. From Russia came Baltika beer, said by its spokesperson to be the second bestselling brew in Europe, behind Heineken – the company produces five billion litres a year and each of the 17 beverages in the brand has kosher certification, even though beer generally does not require it.

However, contrary to popular belief, nori, which is used in sushi, poses a unique kashrut obstacle, even if it contains “100% seaweed.” Rabbi Binyomin Y. Edery, the mashgiach of Kosher Japan, explained that kosher nori, despite being a vegetable from the ocean, requires a special process, as well as rabbinical supervision. Unbeknown to many, seahorses (not kosher) and various non-kosher fish eggs become intermingled with the seaweed and must be filtered out for the seaweed to be deemed kosher, a process that is not done at non-kosher manufacturing plants.

The workaround for the kosher world, said Edery, is to harvest the seaweed in a certain two-hour window prior to daybreak, when the waters are coldest and the creatures are least likely to swim.

Moving from ocean water to bottled water from the Czech Republic’s Fromin, which is collected from an artesian well 275 metres deep, and is sold in glass bottles that can cost up to $35 US for 1.5 litres. Available in North Africa and Europe, the kosher-certified company sought a North American distributor.

According to chairman Martin Landa, although water does not require a hechsher (kosher certification), he said many consumers want to be doubly assured there are no treif (non-kosher) additives or non-kosher products made in the bottler’s vicinity.

From Betula Pendula, also in the Czech Republic, comes goat colostrums – the fluid secreted by female goats right after giving birth, which is used in skin cream and immune-boosting pills.

In other quasi-milk news, Israel-based Mashumashu, makers of vegetarian, dairy-free artisan cheeses, including cheddar, gouda, mozzarella and feta, showed off how their products melt easily on a pizza, and boasted that few people could tell the difference between the real deal and their cheeses.

Meanwhile, the gluten-free trend has caught on with dozens of Kosherfest’s exhibitors, including Soupergirl of Washington, D.C., run by former comedian Sara Polin. She said she “sought a healthy, kosher and delicious soup” with “only ingredients you can pronounce,” so she made some. Among her company’s many products are curried split pea apple kale, lentil butternut squash, and beet gazpacho. She has been featured in the Washington Post and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Also on the gluten-free train was Florida-based DelaRosa, whose executive vice-president Yehudith Girshberg claims to be the only kosher, gluten-free and organic oat producer. They also make organic wines, vinegars, olive oils and tahini.

It appears as though the kosher world will soon be indistinguishable from regular supermarket fare, with the availability of kosher pepperoni and “cheese” pizza, kosher “facon,” kimchi and even duck sausage. If things continue on this trajectory, in the near future, there may be little kosher food makers can’t successfully imitate.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world.

Kosher certification changes

In his book Kosher: Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food, American author Timothy Lytton recounts an old rabbinic joke featuring two mythical creatures created by God at the dawn of time: the Behemoth, a giant ox, and the Leviathan, a giant fish. In the joke, a rabbi explains to his students that, at the End of Days, when the Messiah arrives, there will be a feast and God will slaughter the Behemoth to feed the entire world. The Leviathan will also be slaughtered at the same time, and it too will be used to feed the entire world.

“But rabbi,” one of his students asks, “if the Behemoth can feed the entire world, why also slaughter the Leviathan?”

“Because there will be those who won’t believe the Behemoth is kosher, so they will be able to eat fish,” the rabbi answers.

Clearly, disputes over kashrut go back a long way and, if there’s any truth to the joke, the Messiah’s arrival might not resolve the matter.

Lytton, a professor of law at Albany Law School, told the CJN that the current certification system in North America, in which a handful of big players effectively dominates the market, developed as a result of widespread corruption and uncertainty in the kosher food market in the early days of the 20th century. Things then were so bad that people had no confidence that the food they might consume was actually kosher. Many kosher-observant Jews simply stopped eating meat, because they did not trust any certification.

Standards began improving 50 or 60 years ago and, today, industrial producers of all sorts of foods eagerly seek out kosher certification for entry into a desirable market. But rivalries among certification agencies can have a negative effect, Lytton writes.

“Personal animus and institutional rivalries can skew judgments about reliability. Information networks and supply-chain influence can be used to poach clients and stifle competition.

“Too many rivalries and accusations can spill over and create a public perception and a consumer response that is bad for both sides.”

“If the competition gets too bad or nasty, it tends to degrade the reputation of kosher supervision overall.”

Kosher certification agencies are “hostages of each other…. If the competition gets too bad or nasty, it tends to degrade the reputation of kosher supervision overall. If the nastiness gets bad enough, the history of kosher certification suggests that it will be bad for the public reputations of all the certifiers. There’s a long history in kosher certification of rabbis running each other down and, if they do it in public, the public won’t trust any of them,” he said.

One solution to infighting among certification agencies is being considered in Israel. Naftali Bennett, the country’s economy and trade minister, who also serves as minister for religious services, recently announced plans to introduce a three-tier system that aims to make certification easier for restaurants and their patrons. According to the Times of Israel, Bennett’s system would award food-producing establishments with one to three stars, indicating their level of adherence to Judaism’s dietary laws.

“Each business or company can decide how many stars it wants,” Bennett said.

The new approach would also revise the system of funding for certifications. Currently, food establishments pay for their own supervision, a practice that has drawn criticism for creating potential conflicts of interest for inspectors. The new reform proposes a third-party body that would handle the financial side of the kashrut supervision. However, the Times of Israel reported that there was plenty of criticism of the new government plan.

Shahar Ilan, deputy director of Hiddush, an Israeli nonprofit organization that promotes religious freedom and equality, said Bennett’s arrangement would maintain the state rabbinate’s monopoly over the kashrut system instead of opening it up to the free market. He called on authorities to encourage kashrut liberalization, including non-religious, Reform and Conservative kosher certifications, enabling consumers to choose to be kosher according to their own beliefs.

Lawrence Lax, a kosher consumer and an addiction counselor by profession, has his own suggestions about reforming kosher supervision in Toronto. He suggests that the Kashruth Council of Canada, which administers the COR hechsher and is known by that name, faces “a conflict of interest” in its operations – though different than the one centred on the way mashgichim are paid.

“On the one hand, they have to be of service to the people they work with in the food industry,” Lax said. “On the other hand, they have to make it possible for us to have kosher food at good prices.”

He suggested that COR use its market clout to negotiate better prices for meat. He also proposed that COR should transition into a community service organization; that it “age-out senior salaries” when older employees retire and turn over most mashgiach services to young men coming out of yeshivot, who wouldn’t command large salaries.

COR declined to answer the CJN’s questions. It published an open letter, in which it described itself as being “dedicated to serving our community.”

“COR is a not-for-profit organization and all fees collected go towards covering our operations and providing services to the community. In the food service division (i.e. restaurants and caterers) we actually operate at a financial deficit – our expenses are greater than our fees. We are able to marginally compensate for this loss from our other divisions. Customers choose COR because they know that we are reliable, we provide professional service and our prices are in line with the other major kosher certifiers,” the letter stated.

COR, however, has adopted the practice being criticized in Israel – it permits restaurants, caterers and suppliers to employ mashgichim directly, though they report to COR and are under the supervision of COR personnel.

Moti Bensalmon, a spokesman for Badatz Toronto, a kosher certification agency founded in 2008, said, “The conflict of interest whereby a mashgiach is paid directly by a business is finally going to end in Israel. Any agency allowing mashgichim to be paid by ownership loses its credibility in today’s world.”

Referring to other Israeli proposals for reform of its kashrut certification system, Bensalmon rejected the idea of a three-tiered approach.

“I believe a three-tiered system is bad here and in Israel. What we need to strive for is a solid one-tier system that is acceptable to everyone. This means that the Charedim and Modern Orthodox should negotiate unified minimum standards and apply them to everyone.

“What Bennett is trying to do is undermine the legitimate operations of the private hechshers and have the government be the sole certifier of kashrut.”

“If a restaurant or caterer wants a higher level of supervision, there are many reputable private hechsherim that can fill the void. What Bennett is trying to do is undermine the legitimate operations of the private hechshers and have the government be the sole certifier of kashrut.

“I believe the best way to move forward is for the Israeli Rabbanut to be more of a governing body for all hechshers. In order to provide kosher certification, the nongovernment hechshers would have to be accredited by the Rabbanut, meet certain standards, regulate their business practices and treat their mashgichim with fairness.

“This would also eliminate the back-room deals and put an end to agencies blocking each others’ products from entry into their establishments. This is the real solution, and it will open the hashgachah market up to more real and fair competition, which would eventually bring all prices down,” he said.

As to Badatz’s disputes with COR, Bensalmon said, “Everywhere there is a large Jewish community like Toronto, there are multiple kashrut agencies. It’s a fact of life that the COR must come to terms with. We harbor no ill will to the individuals running COR in any way. We would like to run our organization without interference from COR and vice versa.

“We have reached out to them multiple times and tried to have meaningful discussions centred on having two organizations operate by the same sets of rules in Toronto. Their position we were told is that the only solution is to join COR under their leadership and administration. As we see in other parts of the world, it’s difficult to reach an agreement with people who harbor those views.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.