Articles

By Rabbi Dovid Cohen, Administrative Rabbinic Coordinator

Q. Is it easier to certify a factory owned by Jewish people rather than by non-Jews?

A. Most people are surprised to hear that when a Jew owns a food-production facility, that leads to certain additional chumros (strict positions) than would not exist if the owner was not Jewish, and the following are some examples of that.

Most factories are open all year round – receiving ingredients, producing food, and shipping goods to their customers.  If any of the ingredients are chametz, meaning they include wheat, barley, rye, oats, or spelt, a Jewish person may not own or transact business with those items on Pesach.  In a home environment, the Jew will destroy or “sell” his chametz for the duration of Pesach, but this is not practical for most factories.  They need to continue producing and filling orders, and most of them would have a difficult time closing for Pesach.  If the Jewish owner violates this halachic requirement, it is not just a “personal” religious failure but also renders the food permanently forbidden to all.  [The same does not apply to kitnios.]  As a result, the certifying agency must ensure that these halachos are followed, and this is sometimes so logistically difficult that it means that the company cannot be certified.

Another issue is that if the company produces bread, cake, pizza, and similar items, and a Jew owns the dough at the time the flour and water are mixed together, there is an obligation of hafrashas challah.  If there is a Shomer Shabbos person present at all times in the factory, then that person can perform the required separation, but in most cases that is not a realistic possibility.  To solve this issue, hashgachos have developed a method of separating challah “remotely”.  The basic idea is that they make sure the factory has dough or matzah which is obligated in hafrashas challah (a.k.a. tevel), and then each day the Rabbi makes a declaration that a bit of that tevel should serve as the “challah” for batches made that day.  There are significant practical and halachic issues involved in such a system, and, accordingly, there are those who question the viability of these systems.  Nonetheless, most national hashgachos rely on them in one form or another.

The requirement of pas Yisroel is another potential issue which must be considered.  The general halacha is that pas Yisroel (the requirement that a Jew participate in the baking of all breads, cakes, and similar foods) is not required when the bread is produced for sale by a commercial baker (as opposed to by a private person).  However, Shach says that this leniency, known as pas paltar, does not apply when a Jew owns the bakery.   According to this, hashgachos would be required to set up some sort of system to create pas Yisroel for these types of factories which are Jewish-owned.  However, in practice, most rely on Iggeros Moshe, who suggests reasons why Shach’s position does not apply to most commercial factories.

Lastly, Jews who farm or raise animals must potentially content with halachos of yoshon, zeroah l’chayayim v’keivah (if they are in Eretz Yisroel), and bechor, which would not apply were those same farms owned by non-Jews.

This article first appeared in the Let’s Talk Kashrus column, Yated Ne’eman, November 29, 2024.