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Kosher for Consumers
Useful articles and interesting information about Keeping Kosher and Kosher Supervision.
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Dear Rabbi: QUESTION: As an OU company, I have many customers who want their names printed on the label with no mention of the manufacturer (also known as private label products). We understand the need to sign a contract, to ensure that everyone is “on the same page” with the OU requirements for private labels, though the “legalese” of the contract makes it hard for us to understand what exactly we are obligating ourselves (and what our label company is obligating itself) to do to remain OU certified. Can you advise us in “plain talk” what exactly are the responsibilities of the manufacturer and the label company in the agreement? Specifically, what is this “parallel product” clause, and why is it needed?
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If it’s Monday, it Must Be Latvia (with Tuesday in Lithuania and Wednesday in Estonia)
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Baltic States, the frozen north, and particularly in Lithuania, home to great Jewish communities -- now these communities are gone and only memories remain. I share these memories -- my grandparents trod this ground 70 years ago.
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I have heard it said that running a successful kosher program is as easy as PIE: Products, Ingredients and Equipment. One must keep an updated schedule B (products) an updated schedule A (ingredients) and have a proper system for keeping track of the kosher/pareve status of equipment. I would like to add another interpretation to this wise adage. Running a successful kosher program is as easy as π (as in 3.14159…).
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Decay? No Way! Kosher Preservatives to the Rescue
“May I have a steak well done, please, and a fruit cocktail?” is a request that is commonly heard in a restaurant. It’s very rare to hear someone in a restaurant say, “Waiter, I’d like an order of rotten fruit, please, and do you have any steak that causes botulism?”
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For a Traveling RFR, It’s a Long and Winding Road to the Nearest Plant
As a traveling RFR (rabbinic field representative) for more years than I care to admit to, one quickly learns that regardless of how carefully we plan our days, flexibility is the key to success.
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Vanilla, Hurricane Hudah, and the OU Flavor Department
In order to get to Indospice, a vanilla bean export company deep in the jungles of Bondowasa Java, Indonesia, Rabbi Moshe Machuca arrives at a local airport, drives up, down, and around steep mountains, past fishing villages, thatched huts, caribou, monkeys, and exotic birds for five difficult, but colorful, hours until he reaches the plant. There he watches as workers at Indospice scald vanilla beans in vats of boiling water and set them in the sun for three to four weeks. The process, called curing, initiates a series of biochemical events within the vanilla bean that yields one of the most cherished, and expensive, flavors in the world: natural vanilla.
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Is the Kasha Kosher? At The Birkett Mills, the Answer Is Yes – OU Kosher
Founded in 1797, The Birkett Mills is the oldest and one of the primary millers of buckwheat in America. The company is located in Penn Yan, New York, and has been family owned for over 200 years. Originally the mill was water powered and it generated electricity for both milling of grain, but also for the village of Penn Yan until the village had its own source of electricity. The town was founded by Connecticut Yankees and Pennsylvania Dutch and thus got its name from both of these groups.
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Stonyfield Leaves No Stone Unturned to Produce Delicious Taste of Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt
Stonyfield Farm, celebrating its 27th year, is the world's leading organic yogurt company. Its all- natural and certified organic yogurt, smoothies, milk, cultured soy, frozen yogurt and ice cream are distributed nationally. The company advocates that healthy food can only come from a healthy planet. All of Stonyfield’s products are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union – a certification that symbolizes purity and quality, two attributes which are at the core of the company’s mission. Stonyfield chose to be certified by the OU because of the organization’s international respect -- for being known to hold products to the highest standard possible.
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Easy to Eat, Complex to Certify: Yogurt is a Favorite Food for the Cultured Among Us
Yogurt was first produced thousands of years ago. Dairy history and legend indicate that yogurt originated in Iran or Turkey. One story has it that an ancient Turk was carrying milk in his goatskin for some time, whereupon he noticed that the substance had developed into a thick, creamy mass (precipitated by the bacteria in the goatskin and the warm temperature).This new product was referred to as ‘yogurut’.
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Rudolf Jelínek‘s 400-Year Tradition of Making Slivovitz Bears Fruit in the U .S.
Rudolf Jelínek is a joint stock company engaged in the production of alcoholic beverages and currently ranks among the major producers of fruit brandy in the world. The company was founded in 1894 and follows a 400–year-old tradition of slivovitz-making in Walachia, Czech Republic.
