LUBICOM CEO Menachem Lubinsky is the founder and co-producer of Kosherfest, the annual trade event for the kosher food & beverage industry and is the editor-in-chief of KosherToday.

Eye on Kosher shares Lubinsky’s personal reflections on kosher-related topics and is released on alternating weeks with My Sixth Sense, which can be found at http://www.koshertoday.com

Should We Be Concerned About the Quality of the Kosher Food We Eat

Mar 23, 2009

Ever so often a new safety concern emerges in the kosher market that sets off the food safety people about kosher in general. In the last few months, I have read a number of articles that seemed to point in the direction of posing the question of whether kosher is indeed safe without any specific reference to any incident. They take on the notion that while kosher may “answer to a higher authority,” it may still not be enough to assure the safety of the products. 

The problem that many of these skeptics have is that there is clear evidence, including numerous studies by the Mintel research organization that most consumers, even non-traditional kosher consumers, consider kosher safer. In fact, Mintel’s annual review of new products gives a clear edge to kosher as the leading claim on packaging. The kosher community has generally been extremely sensitive to safety issues. Most kosher products are produced in plants that are monitored for their safety by some outside agency, be it government or private. Many kashrus agencies that certify products in Southeast Asia, for example, routinely require management to produce evidence of their health and safety worthiness. This was particularly true in the aftermath of the well-publicized concerns over Chinese health and safety standards. 

At present many segments of the kosher community are confronting the bugs issue, particularly in the post-pesticides era. The concern for bug-free products is based on a prohibition in the Torah to consume the live bugs. Originally an issue with vegetables, the concern led to whole generation of pre-washed and pre-cut vegetables. In recent months, the concern spread to strawberries and even raisins. In each case, the kosher community as a whole dealt with the issues in a very professional manner, often resorting to scientific testing.

Then there is, of course, the safety issue raised by some leftist and liberal sources that relate to Agriprocessors and simply refuse to move on. Larry Bain, co-founder of Let’s Be Frank, a company that produces and serves grass-fed beef hot dogs and family–farmed pork sausages, was quoted in a recent New York Times article as saying that many people and rarely Jews ask him “Are your hot dogs kosher?” Of course, since few seem to care about his grass fed distinction. This is obviously extremely troubling to him, especially since he immediately paints the entire kosher community with a broad PETA brush. It just so happens that the quality and safety of kosher hot dogs were never an issue as kosher hot dogs have even won international competitions for their quality. Poor Mr. Bain can’t stand it when a blond Irishman asks him “Are your hot dogs kosher?” when he sells grass fed hot dogs.

Make no mistake in that the greater community may be at risk from safety issues and kosher may be part of it, but there is no evidence that kosher has any worse problems than the rest of the food world. In fact, to date kosher’s record has been virtually impeccable, except for those that have a problem with kosher to begin with.