Articles

By Rabbi Dovid Cohen, Administrative Rabbinic Coordinator

Q. Dried fruit seems like such a simple food.  Are there any kashrus issues to worry about?

A. Fruit tastes wonderful, but – especially in the olden days when there was no refrigeration – it quickly spoils, and, therefore, people had to come up with ways to store fruits for extended periods of time.  One method of doing that is to squeeze juice out of the fruit and then ferment that juice into an alcoholic beverage (e.g., wine), which, in a sealed container (i.e., without exposure to the air), would remain fresh for extended amounts of time. 

Drying fruit offers a different option, since fruit that has very little “active water” will not spoil.  The traditional way to dry fruit was to lay it out in the sun until it dried out, and this method is still common for certain items (e.g., brown raisins) or in countries with agreeable climates.  Others put the fruit on a tray and into a hot/warm chamber where it remains till it dries out.  The equipment is very low-tech and so specific to this use that there is no real concern that it would be used for non-kosher.

One potential kashrus issue that these methods share is that many companies spray oil on the dried fruit to keep the pieces from sticking together.  This concern is more significant for Pesach, since the oil is generally made from soybeans which are kitnios.  There are some fruits that are infested with insects, and sun-dried versions of those fruits cannot be eaten.  In contrast, the heat involved in drying fruit in an oven is typically strong enough to disintegrate the insects and obviate that concern.  [This is akin to the halacha that an insect which dried out naturally for 12 months, is considered “like dust” and permitted.]

Some produce, particularly berries, are dried using a more advanced method called “freeze-drying” which is very expensive but produces a higher quality product.  Freeze-drying removes all insects but presents its own kashrus issue, in that the equipment used by a company which has freeze-drying equipment will commonly also use it to dry meat, fish, dairy, and other kosher-sensitive products.  [Despite its name, freeze-drying involves heat at specific parts of the process.]  Thus, all freeze-dried foods require hashgachah, to ensure that the food’s kosher status isn’t affected by the equipment it was processed on.

The bracha rishonah on dried fruit is borei pri ha’eitz, and in most cases the bracha acharonah is borei nefashos.  The exceptions to this rule are dried versions of grapes (i.e., raisins), figs, and dates.  These fruits are from the shivas haminim (seven special foods of Eretz Yisroel), and the bracha acharonah one recites on eating them is al haietz v’al pri hae’itz (i.e., a modified version of al hamichyah).

This article first appeared in the Let’s Talk Kashrus column, Yated Ne’eman, March 21, 2025.