The OU continues to give certification to Passover Quinoa. Quinoa will be available with an OU-P from Setton, Pereg, Earthly Choice, Goldbaum, Natural Earth and La Bonne. Pereg will also be selling quinoa flour. The OU will also continue certifying OU Kitniyot retail items as it did last year. Manischewitz will again have its Kitni line which includes chick peas, corn, lentil mix, peanut butter and popcorn. Ferrero in Italy will have OU Kitniyot Nutella Spread and Kinder Chocolate. Osem will also have a number of OU Kitniyot items. All these products are clearly marked OU Kiyniyot Ochlei Kitniyot and are all made with Mashgiach Temidi like all OU-P products.
Manischewitz together with Welch’s is introducing concord grape juice and sparkling concord grape juice. Kedem continues to bottle grape juice under its own name as well as under the Savion and Gefen labels. All these items have always been and will continue to be Mevushal. Kedem has one not Mevushal grape juice. This is bottled in 1.5 liter glass bottles and clearly labeled Non-Mevushal. Kedem also has Fresh Pressed Grape Juice as an OU-P grape juice made without sulfites. Kedem also has Pomegranate and Sparkling Pomogrape Juices with the OU-P certification. Passover vodka will be available from David’s Harp and Royal Elite. OU-P liquers will be available under the Queen Esther, Spirit of Solomon & Gold Shot labels. Zachlawi will have OU-P arak and vodka. Zwack Slivovitz will be available with OU-P.
Manischewitz continues to bake matzah in Newark, NJ as in years past. The OU has also agreed as in past years to place the OU-P on Aviv, Osem, Yehuda, Rishon and Holy Land matzah products coming from Israel. The items are supervised by local Rabbanim and are satisfactorily made with OU Pesach guidelines. In addition, we certify Yanovsky matzah baked in Argentina. This matzah is widely distributed in Latin America. This company manufactures various types of matzah.
Manischewitz has whole wheat matzah meal and whole wheat matzah farfel. These items are made from Manischewitz OU-P whole wheat matzah. Manischewitz also bakes OU-P Matzah under the Horowitz Margareten label. They also make Mediterranean Matzah which is regular matzah sprayed with oil and spices after baking. It is not Matzah Ashirah. Manischewitz continues to produce Egg Matzah as well as Passover Tam Tams. These are made from egg matzah dough and marked as Matzah Ashira on the box. Manischewitz also bakes machine Shmura Matzah. In addition Manischewitz makes a product known as matzah crackers. This is an ordinary matzah product and is not Matzah Ashira. The various Israeli OU matzah companies will all be selling machine shmurah matzah as well.
Manischewitz will again have gluten free OU-P crackers and gluten free OU-P matzah style squares. Yehuda will also have these gluten free products as well as gluten free cake meal, fine meal and farfel. Kedem will also have Absolutely brand OU-P gluten free flatbread and crackers as well as Jeff Nathan gluten free Panko Flakes. None of these products are made from matzah and none of them can be used in the place of matzah. This is clearly marked on the label.
Coca Cola will again be available with an OU-P for Pesach in Regular and Diet flavors. Aside from the New York metropolitan area, Coke will be available in Boston, Baltimore-Washington, Miami, Atlanta and Los Angeles. Coca Cola items will be made with an OU-P in 2 liter bottles. All these items, of course, require the P symbol. All the Passover Coke items will be marked with a distinctive yellow cap in addition to the P symbol on the cap or shoulder of the bottle.
The Haddar line of Passover products will again be available. The Barton brand will be back again with the OU-P. A full line of Barricini candy items will be available with the OU-P symbol. Manischewitz and Barricini will both have chocolate covered egg matzah. In addition Barton will have OU-P chocolate covered regular matzah crackers. The Barton item is not Matzah Ashirah. Barricini also has chocolate covered regular matzah. This is also not Matzah Ashirah.
Norman’s has a full line of Cholov Yisroel yogurt. In addition there will be OU-P Cholov Yisroel goat cheese and sheep cheese from Barkanit and mozzarella, provolone and pecorino cheese from Yotvata.
J&J will have OU-P cottage cheese, cream cheese and farmer cheese. All of these will be Cholov Yisroel. An important development is that Dannon will again be producing OU-P yogurt in coffee and vanilla flavors. This year Dannon OU-P yogurt will also be available in the smaller 6 oz. size.
There will be two OU-P brands of packaged cakes available this year. These are Schicks and Lily’s Bakeshop. They are baked in a special Passover bakery and do not contain matzah meal. Irene’s will have OU-P certified blintzes and knishes. These items are made with matzo meal. Bernies Foods will have Frankels blintzes, waffles and pizza as well as LeTova Kichel and bread sticks. These are not made with matzah meal. Dayenu pizza, rolls and pierogies are made with matzah meal. Manischewitz and Yehuda will have a line of matza meal based cakes and cookies.
Season will have Moroccan sardine items in various sauces for Passover. All of these items are made with mashgiach temidi and bishul yisrael. Tuna fish is available with an OU-P from Season, Gefen and Mishpacha. In addition Shoprite OU-P tuna fish in water will be available. Season and Gefen will have OU-P salmon in both regular and no salt versions. All these items are made with mashgiach temidi and Bishul Yisrael.
The OU position remains that OU supervised extra virgin olive oil can be used without special supervision for Pesach. Mother’s olive oil pan coating spray, Mishpacha olive oil spray and Manischewitz olive oil spray will also be available with the OU-P symbol. Prepared olives with an OU-P will be available from Gefen, Osem, Kvuzat Yavne, Gilboa and Mishpacha. Spectrum coconut oil will be available this year with OU-P certification.
The OU position continues to be that all granulated white sugar is acceptable for Passover. This is not true for powdered sugar which requires Passover certification. Brown sugar may be a problem, but there is a list of various OU year round certified brands of brown sugar in the directory which are acceptable for Passover. Gefen will be introducing Nutra Taste Gold, a new artificial sweetener. It will continue to offer Sweet & Low with OU Passover certification.
Manischewitz will again have OU-P chocolate covered potato chips this year. Health Garden will again have OU-P Xylitol sweetener and Xylitol Vanilla sweetener. Manischewitz also will be selling OU-P cotton candy.
The OU position remains that regular tea bags, which are not flavored or decaffeinated, are acceptable for Pesach without special supervision. In addition we have clarified once again this year that all Lipton unflavored decaffeinated tea bags are acceptable without special supervision. This is not true of other decaffeinated tea bags. Shoprite also has specially marked OU-P plain tea bags on the market. In addition Swee-Touch-Nee and Wissotsky will continue to have Passover herbal teas. Some coffee companies add maltodextrin, which is either chametz or kitniyos, to instant coffee. As a result this coffee is not kosher for Passover. Only coffee bearing an OU-P symbol or brands listed in the gray area of the Passover Directory should be used. Both Folger’s and Taster’s Choice instant coffee remain acceptable without special Passover certification. This year we have clarified that Folger’s Decaffeinated instant coffee is also acceptable for Passover without special certification. This is not true of other OU certified decaffeinated instant coffee. Other brands should be checked in the Directory. Ground coffee remains acceptable from any source as long as it is unflavored and not decaffeinated.
