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The Kosher Fish Scandal

by · January 30th, 2008
Featured, Fish, Health, Kosher, News

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This week, the Winnipeg Free Press reported yet another scandal in the kosher food industry – this time focusing on the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corp.  According to the article, the company sold kosher-certified fish products that had sloppy-at-best supervision throughout the 1990s:

“The FFMC is the largest North American supplier of fish minced to produce kosher fish called “gefilte fish…”  To be OU certified, the FFMC employed a rabbi to supervise the processing and cleaning required for the kosher certification…But according to information obtained from employees at FFMC, the rabbi was often derelict in his duties and management knew it.While he was required to observe the production line at all times, he spent a great deal of time in an office on a computer, or was simply absent….He was obliged to make sure that only fish with fins and scales were being processed, that species like burbot and catfish were not in the mix. Allowing a catfish into the mix would be as offensive to Jews as dropping pork into ground beef would be to Muslims.

The rabbi inspector was in the employ of the FFMC from the late 1980s until 2000. But for at least the last five of those years, he lived in Kenora and commuted to Winnipeg once every couple of weeks to pick up his Government of Canada paycheque.”

Honestly, as I read about this latest transgression – I felt anything but shocked.

These days, it seems that the kosher food industry is fighting the American meat industry for the “most scandals per year” award.  A little E.coli here, some inhumane treatment of animals there, – is it really such a surprise to find out that the OU isn’t as consistent or rigorous in their supervision as they claim?

The folks over at Failed Messiah (who reported this story yesterday) stand their ground as a kosher industry watchdog – but this time around I was surprised by their comment that any stray catfish that made it’s way into FFMC’s products is small enough to be considered “battel, negated in the whole.”  I don’t quite buy that.  If the kosher industry argues that parve foods processed on dairy equipment should be labeled as such, then shouldn’t it have similar standards for making sure that even a little treif fish does not make it’s way into a bottle of kosher gefilte?

Quibbling aside, however, it troubles me that these “shocking scandals” – kosher or otherwise – are becoming so commonplace.  When the scandal starts to become the accepted norm – that’s the real shande.

Read the full Winnipeg Free Press article here.

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8 Responses to “The Kosher Fish Scandal”

  1. Zelig Golden Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    Leah,
    You Go! The Kosher Industry is starting to look and sound like the FDA. More and more the FDA is being caught in scandal after scandal – lack of enforcement, rubber stamping industrial foods okay, and even promoting new technologies that have not been proven to be safe, and that consumers reject outright (cloning is the big story right now).

    It’s a shame if the food values of the Jewish community are going the way of the profiteers … We need some accountability. Or maybe, we need to get serious about our food values.

    Thanks Leah for your sound critique.
    Zelig

  2. Sarah Fenner Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    “… Allowing a catfish into the mix would be as offensive to Jews as dropping pork into ground beef would be to Muslims.”

    This comment strikes me as funny and a bit ironic since dropping pork into ground beef would be just as offensive to kashrut observing Jews as it would be to Muslims.

  3. Leah Koenig Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm

    Thanks Zelig. :)

    I had the same thought Sarah – clearly the author is less familiar with the ins and outs of kosher law…though I don’t think that reflects negatively on her ability to report effectively in this case.

  4. Michael Croland Says:
    January 30th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    Re: “While he was required to observe the production line at all times, he spent a great deal of time in an office on a computer, or was simply absent.”

    * Oftentimes, the people charged with inspecting slaughter facilities for safety, animal welfare, or kashrut reasons are simply not where they’re supposed to be.

    * In the wake of the 2004 AgriProcessors scandal, a subsequent USDA report (http://tinyurl.com/ynwn2q) found that an inspector at the world’s largest glatt kosher slaughterhouse “spends a lot of time in the government office playing computer games on the government computer.”

    * Government inspectors who should hypothetically be enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act are also typically MIA or impotent to actually change what they see. In the words of Arthur Hughes (president of the National Joint Council of Food Inspection Locals): “We are the people who are charged by Congress with enforcing [the Humane Slaughter Act], but most of our inspectors have little to no access to those areas of the plants where animals are being handled and slaughtered.” Felicia Nastor (food-safety director for the Government Accountability Project) adds, “Federal inspectors check paperwork, not food, and are prohibited from removing feces and other contaminants before products are stamped with the purple USDA seal of approval.” To read more, see: http://tinyurl.com/26edcs.

  5. Michael Croland Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 7:52 am

    My comment last night evolved into a blog post (on heebnvegan) this morning. Thanks for the info, inspiration, and opportunity. :-)

    http://heebnvegan.blogspot.com.....those.html

  6. Ben Says:
    February 16th, 2008 at 9:58 pm

    See: http://www.kashrutnews.com/200.....ainst.html

  7. jabbett Says:
    April 7th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    There is a distinct halachic difference between the issue of “battel” and the issue of “dairy equipment.” This is an oversimplification, but when a treyf minority ingredient that was introduced by accident cannot be distinguished from the kosher majority ingredients, the treyf becomes “battel” (nullified) to the degree that the treyf no longer halachically exists, and the food is fully kosher. Note that intentional addition of tiny amounts of non-kosher food is still prohibited outright. (The details are more complicated, and I encourage you to reference _The Laws of Kashrus_ by Binyomin Forst for a full treatment.)

    When a pareve food is cooked with vessels that are halachically dairy, there are special rules which govern how they may be consumed — specifically, they may be eaten after meat, but not along with meat. (So pareve cookies made with dairy-equipment (DE) chocolate chips could follow immediately a meat meal with no waiting, but could not be served on the same plate as meat.)

    It is unfortunate that certain certifiers do not trust consumers to properly handle DE situations and will label DE foods as dairy, but in this specific case, your comparison to battel is inappropriate. Scrutinize the OU, but you needn’t knock the halacha.

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