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what is one to do when they call a company up to find out who the rav hamachshir is and they are asked why do want to know .
our product is pas yisroel so what is the problem.
i answered back that i can’t find the name of the rov on the product and can you please give me the name of the rov so that i can ask my question.
i was answered go get a magnifying glass and look for it , we will not give you that information.
my question is as follows , should i assume that since the company refuses to give me the name of the rav hamachshir , they must have something to hide , or should the company be given the benefit of the doubt and not make a big thing about this.
i would love the people who read yeshiva world to give there opinions concerning this matter.
Call again, maybe you’ll get someone more helpful. If not, any you can’t find the hechsher, consider it non-existent.
There is no “benefit of the doubt” in kashrus. If you don’t know who takes responsibility for the product and that he is reliable, don’t eat it
I’d say, the “customer service representative” you reached doesn’t know so you’d have to ask them to send you(r call) up the chain of command to someone who does know.
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yosse-
That’s a very odd reaction.
I’ve asked that question many times when calling restaurants, bakeries, pizza stores and so on, and the question was always answered.
A store or product without a reliable hechsher is useless, which is how I’d treat this case.
Buy another product.
As many before have said try a few times, if you get the same
attitude, Something is fishy…or crumby…(or corny!) 🙂
I was looking for a hechsher today on a Special K Product, and could not find it. If I need a magnifying glass to see an OU or the like, then the product is not being purchased or consumed by me.
Kellogg’s and many other companies us “k” instead of a full symbol due to Anti-Semitism. Some companies bury the OU at the end of the ingredient panel for the same reason.
Jothar – the most comprehensive list of hechsherim available is on anti-semitic websites that warn gentiles about paying the “Jew tax”. I’d say there’s pretty good reason for companies to hide the symbol, don’t you agree?
Last year before Purim I noticed that on boxes of a particular candy there were stickers with a “Kosher” seal on them. the boxed contained a hechsher printed on the label also – a symbol that I did not recognize. I asked one of the purchasers for the store and was told that the story behind the sticker is that somepeople want to have a local hechsher – someone they know – so this person puts his sticker on the packages and certifies them “kosher.”
I noticed that packages without the printed on hechsher also contained his stickers. This concerned me so I called the Company and they told me that only 1 agency comes to visit the plant and they gave me the name of the Rav and that matched the symbol printed on the box. They also told me that the product in question was kosher even though the box did not contain the printed on hechsher. I called the Rav and he confirmed and emailed me a list of all the kosher products at that company and which ones had printed symbols and which ones did not. In addition, I asked the Rav if the other Rabbi with the stickers ever contacted him to ascertain that this was so and I was told that he had not. Both the Rav of the Supervising Agency and the Company were surprised to hear that someone else was putting their kosher symbol on the product.
So the “sticker” Rabbi authorized his stickers to go on products for which he never supervised nor even checked with the supervising agency. I advised my family that 1) we do hold by the hechsher of the Rabbi whose name is on the sticker. 2) we do not rely upon stickers of anyone unless we verify that there is proper supervision performed by that person or it has a hechsher on the package that we trust.
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For purposes of full disclosure, I did not contact the “sticker” Rabbi for his version.
A hechsher is, unfortunately, also used as a marketing tool with the “sticker” often adding nothing to the hechsher in any way.It is simply a name that is known in a specific community.
A bakery in my neighborhood has 3 hechsherim purely for marketing purposes.
The local Vaad for all those who feel that all hechsherim should come from the local Vaad. A “heimishe” hechsher for all the “heimishe” folks in the neighborhood and a national symbol for all those who are to the left of the “heimishe” but the Vaad is not good enough.
mdlevine: Unless I overlooked something in your comment, how are you confident that the culprit wasn’t the store, and in fact the “sticker Rabbi” was completely unaware that his stickers were being affixed to the product in question?
Joseph,
no – you did not overlook anything in my comment – but I will add additional comments. there are numerous all kosher grocery stores where I live and I checked other stores also. All the stores that I checked had boxed with these stickers on them.
you will also notice some other things missing in the post:
the name of the Company
the name of the product
the name of the Rav and the official Supervising Agency
the name of the “sticker” Rabbi
all of these were left out of the post so as to avoid casting any of them in a bad light. with any one of these names, many people could figure out the rest.
jphone,
having multiple hechshers is not the problem – the problem arises when someone is potentially putting a hechsher on something that they have not supervised.
MDLevine. What do you think happens when you have multiple hechsherim on an establishment or product?
It’s usually the same person covering for all hechsherim. I know. I was in kashrus for a while, when just out of yeshiva. I had the tape for 3 different hechsherim at a “plant” and depending on the customer, thats the tape I sealed the box with. Perhaps my experience has left me a bit jaded with the kashrus business (and I use that word with all its implications) but when I see multiple hechsherim I think marketing ploy, not any additional level of kashrus, special run or anything of the sort.
I once asked a “sticker Rav” what additional chumros were adhered to during the special run with which his stickers were affixed, he answered there was no special run and nothing was different. The consumers recognized his name and the distributor felt it would sell better. He should turn down parnassah because of this? I know I wouldnt.
jphone,
I am well aware that one person can supervise for multiple agencies at the same time – that was not the issue. Additional chumros are not the issue either.
The issue here is simple: A box without a hechsher on it had a sticker on it certifying it as kosher by a person who did not visit the plant or send a representative to the plant – nor did he check with the Rav of the certifying agency.
If I remember all the details correctly, the product in question was at one time NOT kosher do to the source of the dye that was used. Additionally, other products manufactured in the plant are not kosher. What is he relying upon to put his sticker on the product? a list on the Company website?
The real question is: How is this “sticker” Rabbi going to know if any changes were made to the product without at a minimum making a phone call to the Supervising Rav?
mdlevine: You make very good points here, but just regarding your last one, perhaps you can be dan that the “sticker Rav” only allowed his name to be put on so long as the original hechsher existed. (Not that it justifies your other concerns.)
A hechsher is only as good as the rav hamachshirs ability to manage those who work for him, often hundreds, possibly thousands of miles away, across the ocean on another continent.
Often hechsher “a” would never hire certain people as mashgichim, but those people end up the mashgichim w/o anyone knowing because what happens 1000 miles away for 45 minutes can be kept quiet. “Sticker rav” may not hire me, ever, yet i might be “covering” for his guy who slept late, had to go early, called out sick, etc…
To answer mdlevines questions. Who says the sticker does anything BUT rely on the other hechsher? Remember the vynegard fiasco a few years ago, just before pesach? Every “sticker” relied on one kashrus agency, affixed their names and when the agency announced an issue all the stickered products had to be recalled to.
Again, more often than not the hechsher is a marketing tool. Which one, where to put the hechsher on the package, if at all (in the case of national brands).
I once called a major kashrus agency when i saw their symbol on a containder of milk. I asked them if their symbol meant anything as i was not makpid on chalav yisroel anyway. Did the hechsher certify something more. The answer was no. They rely on R’ Moshes psak regarding chalav stam and regarding the symbol on the milk carton “thats because we have a contract to place our symbol on all kosher items”. I guess, even when not necessary or when it is meaningless.
I had to come back because something is still bothering me here
jphone wrote: I once asked a “sticker Rav” what additional chumros were adhered to during the special run with which his stickers were affixed, he answered there was no special run and nothing was different. The consumers recognized his name and the distributor felt it would sell better. He should turn down parnassah because of this? I know I wouldnt.
I, as a consumer, always assumed that the “Sticker” Rabbi did more than just stick his name on something – example: at a minimum, validate that the Certifying Agency is actually certifying the product. If he is doing nothing at all, would this not be considered g’navos da’as (spelling?)?
Joseph,
On the packages with the hechsher, one could say as you do, however, on the packages without the hechsher and without checking with Rav of the certifing agency what did the “sticker” Rabbi rely upon?
Back to jphone: To answer mdlevines questions. Who says the sticker does anything BUT rely on the other hechsher? PLEASE go back and read what I wrote numerous times. The “sticker” Rabbis was putting his sticker on packages without a hechsher AND without supervising the Company AND without checking with the Rav who certifies the Company. On what was he relying on?
Who knows what he was relying on. Like I said, hechsherim also serve as a valuable marketing tool. The question really is. Is the sticker an added level of kashrus or is it there for marketing purposes. like everything else, I guess, buyer beware. If you have any questions there are always ways to contact the stickers and ask what added level of kashrus supervision was added and how it was done.
On the subject of kashrus:
I heard this from a rav who was at a wedding. The story happened to his wife.
Basically, she wanted to know if something (I think the barley in the soup) was yoshon. she went to the kitchen and asked. No one knew. She asked to speak to the rav there, and surprise surprise, there isnt any. She called the certifying agency who of the caterer and they said they only gave hashgacha on the food until it left their facility. This rav said for a small amount (under $500) its possible to call the OU and hire a mashgiach for the night. He did this when he made weddings and was very happy.
Since the subject of this thread is “Trying To Find The Rav Hamachshir”, I will say that I was with a group that found a Rav Hamachshir resting on a shelf in a walk in fridge, smoking a cigarette. It was a hot day, he went in to relax and cool off!
Needless to say, we lost points with the health inspector on that find 🙂
Lots of good hotel kashrus horror stories in this week’s Mishpacha.
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