Dive Summary:
- Almost 12 million consumers buy kosher products in the U.S., however studies suggest that the majority of them are not devoutly Jewish, but rather concerned for the safety of their food.
- Many people believe a kosher certification is more rigorous than standard food safety regulations, and in many cases it is, however Kosher inspectors are not trained as extensively as FDA inspectors in the minutiae of bacterial contamination etc..
- Kosher inspections were one of the first food safety regulations and they continue to be stringent, however they are no replacement for sanctioned government inspectors for the broader population.
From the article:
In some cases, kosher certification may serve as a useful proxy for food safety and purity. Regular unannounced kosher inspection of production facilities may increase vigilance in preventing pest infestation and be more likely to detect traces of non-kosher contaminants, like insects. Federal regulations allow for certain threshold amounts of contamination in foods, known as “maximum defect actions levels,” before they are considered unsafe—for example, fewer than two maggots per 500 grams of canned tomatoes and fewer than thirty insect fragments per 100 grams of peanut butter. By contrast, kosher certification has zero tolerance for such contaminants and is more likely to reduce or eliminate their presence in food. Moreover, in 2009, the OU partnered with SGS—a private inspection, verification, testing and certification company—to begin providing dual kosher and food safety certification.
