In my experience, if you are a customer or product owner, having a kosher standard is the path to take. I like to think of kosher as the “Good Housekeeping Seal” in the manufacturing world and you don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate it.
When purchasing a product you might notice a kosher symbol listed on the package. If you are not of Jewish heritage or practice a kosher lifestyle, you may not understand what the symbol represents or the value it can offer.
Determining which foods are kosher and which are not is a detailed process that can require a lengthy explanation. In a nutshell, look at the kosher standard as a secondary layer of sanitary and product monitoring.
The word “kosher” is Hebrew for “fit” or “proper” when applied to food; kosher means the food is acceptable to eat by their biblical standard.
Not all kosher is that same.
In regard to food labeling, there are two types of kosher: kosher and kosher parve. For the purpose of this article I will attempt to explain the value of kosher as I see it, compared to non-kosher ingredients in a manufacturing environment.
From a sanitary standpoint, how are kosher products different from non-kosher products?
Making a kosher product starts with the formula. A formula breaks ingredients down by weight, gives directions as to when certain ingredients can be added, amount of cook time and cooling process. At the end, the specification document for the finished product.
Before the whole process starts, the plant manager gathers all ingredient information including nutritional, ingredient specification sheets and kosher certificates.
The rationale behind requesting a kosher certificate may not be religious reasons, but rather the certification authenticates the quality of ingredients, what it is made of and the ingredient is as stated.
To have an ingredient with a kosher certificate suggests that a representative (the rabbi) of a specific kosher council somewhere in the process witnessed and verified what was supposed to be completed actually was.
For example: An ice cream manufacturer also makes a frozen fruit sorbet, which by dairy standard, does not contain dairy. To make the sorbet, the facility needs to first confirm that each ingredient component does not include a sub-ingredient that contains any dairy bi-product. Typically, the facility will have a policy requiring a kosher certificate attached to all ingredients. This helps ensure the ingredient was previously inspected by a rabbi to confirm and verify.
One area the rabbi looks closely at (which can accidentally make a kosher ingredient non-kosher), has to do with food handling and the manufacturing equipment. For example, when an accepted kosher item such as dried coconut is processed on equipment which previously handled a dairy whey powder, the manufacturer needs to prove the equipment was cleaned properly and was in a rest period to protect against the probability that whey powder did not co-mingles with the coconut. When a rabbi inspects equipment, he often reports on the probability of a certain piece of equipment being susceptible to cross contamination. When kosher and non-kosher ingredients share the same equipment, the rabbi will require a statement on the package. The statement is similar to that of a allergen statement but would say something like, “Product is produced on equipment where dairy may be present.”
A kosher symbol assures that a ingredient does not contain such components as gelatin, which is derived from animal bone. When I am working with a client on a dairy or non-dairy product, I mention to them that as we turn a kitchen recipe into a formula, all ingredients must have a kosher certificate.
The manufacturers I work with like this standard, because most or all of the ingredients warehoused at the plants are kosher. If by necessity a non-kosher ingredient comes into a plant, it would be specially handled by storing separately and tagged. Intermingling kosher and non-kosher ingredients, is not a standard followed by most plant managers.
In some cases, a product label may not show a kosher symbol even though all ingredients are kosher. Why you ask, well for some companies do not want to affiliate their product with a kosher council, but do respect the standard. So the next time you purchase a product, you now can make sense of the standards of the ingredients in it. With kosher you will know that what is listed ingredient panel is verified and documented.
Contact Darryl, he will show you how to operate a clean shop.
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