{"id":189,"date":"2015-03-18T14:53:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T14:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/?p=189"},"modified":"2021-07-12T02:10:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T02:10:20","slug":"a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t all that long ago those \u201ctypical\u201d kosher fish products would\u2019ve consisted of gefilte fish, smoked salmon and pickled herring. As with everyone else, the palates of kosher consumers have matured, and there is almost no commercially available fish product which isn\u2019t available in an OU Kosher-certified form. While the primary motivation for kosher fish certification is for consumption in the United States or Israel, manufacturers of fish products from fish oil supplements, to surimi, capelin roe and tilapia skin gelatin (aside from \u201cplain old\u201d frozen raw fish) all wonder what it takes to become OU-certified. This article will identify some of the typical concerns, as well as how we might address them at OU Kosher.<\/p>\n<p>In order to make an OU kosher-certified fish product, one needs to start with a kosher fish. Any\u00a0raw fish whose scales can be removed without ripping skin would be considered kosher, if the\u00a0following can be confirmed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Enough skin is still intact on that fish for the OU rabbinic field representative to visually inspect it and confirm the species of the product. Skinless fish are considered kosher- sensitive (due to issues of species substitution) and will only be accepted when they are skinned under an acceptable kosher supervision at the processing plant.<\/li>\n<li>Any additives with which the fish may have been treated are kosher-approved.<\/li>\n<li>The fish was not cut in a facility that actively handles non-kosher species, or in a way\u00a0cross-contamination from non-kosher species may result.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once the fish in question is confirmed to be kosher, the individual processing plant and method\u00a0need to be evaluated and confirmed that nothing that may affect the kosher status of that raw fish\u00a0happens during processing. Here are some examples of potential issues:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Equipment is also used for non-kosher fish or non-kosher ingredients (which might be an\u00a0issue with smoked fish, or other cooked fish products).<\/li>\n<li>Ingredients or additives might not be kosher-approved (a frequent concern in surimi\u00a0production).<\/li>\n<li>The process needs to be evaluated to make sure it is in accordance with kosher laws. (For\u00a0example, cooking tuna loins with boiling water has different kosher concerns that cooking\u00a0with steam.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>THE CHANGING FACE OF KOSHER FISH PRODUCTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>OU Kosher was recently contacted by an otherwise unlikely customer looking for kosher certification: <strong>RCB FISH\u00a0COMPANY<\/strong> is a small plant in Ledbetter, KY, exporting and trading in locally caught fishes, primarily Asian carp. Dr. Lula\u00a0Luu is an academic whose passion for proper nutrition, sustainability and providing economic support to local fishers and\u00a0their families led her to partner with Mr. Andre Raghu to be the kind of business which benefits all parties involved.<\/p>\n<p>Working closely with local, small family fishers, rcb is proud to pay more for their fish than other buyers in exchange for\u00a0making better quality fish available to the end customer. Rather than just \u201cgrab the fish and run,\u201d rcb is investing in the\u00a0community to help the community-at-large better understand the wonderful bounty coming from the tennessee and ohio\u00a0rivers. Mr. Raghu proudly described his efforts to assist the fishers in getting fairly priced fishing equipment, to further\u00a0benefit their bottom lines. For its part, the local government couldn\u2019t be happier to have someone making a concentrated\u00a0effort to relieve asian carp, an invasive species, from local waterways. Rcb saw the value in getting ou supervision to\u00a0better tap markets which would be responsive to kosher supervision in their product.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GLOBALIZATION: ANCHOVIES<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The affects of our global economy can\u2019t be felt any more than in the processing of anchovies. What seems like an otherwise\u00a0insignificant feeder fish that would otherwise be a cheap bait fish can be the single product of production facilities around the\u00a0world looking to export to hungry consumers. OU Kosher proudly certifies producers of both industrial and consumer sized\u00a0preparations of anchovy products (more than 350 different in-house and private label products) in the world\u2019s centers of\u00a0anchovy harvest.<\/p>\n<p>THIS INCLUDES GREECE (KALLONI S.A.); PORTUGAL (CONSERVAS PORTUGAL NORTE, FABRICA DE CONSERVAS &#8211; A\u00a0POVEIRA S.A.); SPAIN (CONSERVAS CRESPO S.L.); MOROCCO (AGADIR OCEAN, ANDREXPORT SARL, ATLANTIC\u00a0SARDINE ANCHOVIES TANTAN (ASAT), CIBEL S.A (COMPLEXE INDUSTRIEL ET COMMERCIAL BELHASSAN S.A),\u00a0DELIMAR, IMA, MIDAV, SILVER FOOD, SOCIETE NOUVELLE AVEIRO MAROC, UNIMER, UNIMER MEHDIA\u00a0MOROCCO, VANELLI MAROC S.A.); ARGENTINA (DELICIAS S.A.): CHILE (K Y C SEAFOODS LTDA.); AND PERU\u00a0(ANDINA DE DESARROLLO ANDESA S.A.C., COMPANIA AMERICANA DE CONSERVAS S.A.C, CONSERVERA DE\u00a0LAS AMERICAS S.A., INVERSIONES PRISCO S.A.C., PEZ DE EXPORTACION SAC).<\/p>\n<p>RABBI CHAIM GOLDBERG BEGINS HIS 13TH YEAR OF SERVICE AT OU KOSHER. HIS TALENTS CAST\u00a0A WIDE NET ACROSS MANY AREAS OF KOSHER CERTIFICATION, WITH A SPECIALTY IN THE\u00a0OCEAN\u2019S KOSHER BOUNTY. IN ADDITION TO SUPERVISING MANY OU-CERTIFIED FISH\u00a0MANUFACTURING ACCOUNTS, RABBI GOLDBERG HAS COMPLETED HUNDREDS OF INSPECTIONS\u00a0AT MANUFACTURING PLANTS ON FIVE CONTINENTS. HE STORES HIS PASSPORT IN BROOKLYN,\u00a0NY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t all that long ago those \u201ctypical\u201d kosher fish products would\u2019ve consisted of gefilte fish, smoked salmon and pickled herring. As with everyone else, the palates of kosher consumers have matured, and there is almost no commercially available fish product which isn\u2019t available in an OU Kosher-certified form. While the primary motivation for kosher [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.9.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products - Behind the Union Symbol<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products - Behind the Union Symbol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It wasn\u2019t all that long ago those \u201ctypical\u201d kosher fish products would\u2019ve consisted of gefilte fish, smoked salmon and pickled herring. As with everyone else, the palates of kosher consumers have matured, and there is almost no commercially available fish product which isn\u2019t available in an OU Kosher-certified form. While the primary motivation for kosher [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Behind the Union Symbol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-18T14:53:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-12T02:10:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Chaim Goldberg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rabbi Chaim Goldberg\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/\",\"name\":\"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products - Behind the Union Symbol\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-03-18T14:53:10+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-12T02:10:20+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/#\/schema\/person\/effb91d914dcc6f3b344c697f3d4bbde\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/\",\"name\":\"Behind the Union Symbol\",\"description\":\"\\\\\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/product-search\/#s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/#\/schema\/person\/effb91d914dcc6f3b344c697f3d4bbde\",\"name\":\"Rabbi Chaim Goldberg\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30f8fecdcde08e13dc4ca0a90ea2a99d1698e7e697be1d8232fa04e685e10d06?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/30f8fecdcde08e13dc4ca0a90ea2a99d1698e7e697be1d8232fa04e685e10d06?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rabbi Chaim Goldberg\"},\"description\":\"Rabbi Chaim Goldberg began working at OU Kosher in 2002.\u00a0 His talents cast a wide net across many areas of kosher certification, with a specialty in the ocean\u2019s kosher bounty.\u00a0 In addition to supervising many OU-certified fish manufacturing accounts, Rabbi Goldberg has completed hundreds of inspections at manufacturing plants on five continents.\u00a0 He stores his passport in Brooklyn, NY.\u00a0\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/author\/goldberg\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products - Behind the Union Symbol","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/oukosher.org\/btus\/2015\/03\/18\/a-fish-story-how-ou-kosher-certifies-fish-products\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Fish Story: How OU Kosher Certifies Fish Products - Behind the Union Symbol","og_description":"It wasn\u2019t all that long ago those \u201ctypical\u201d kosher fish products would\u2019ve consisted of gefilte fish, smoked salmon and pickled herring. 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