12-31-2014 Do Kosher Agencies Get Along?

hello and welcome to our monthly webinar Stark's monthly webinar held in the head offices in Baltimore Maryland my name is Robert S Goldberg and I'm here today joined by Rabbi s Holland and RAB B welcome gentlemen thank you for joining us RAB Holland is a special guest unscheduled guest that we did not know would uh would be able to join us but we're very glad that he's here um and I'm very glad to be here thank you rob H we're uh we're excited about this this webinar interesting topic we think um if you want to join us by telephone if the sound is an issue for you you can join us by telephone 28895 1203 218 895-1203 passcode 2020 if you're joining us by web the address is learn kosher click webinar.com kosher uh this webinar is held the last Wednesday of every month at noon God willing and if you want to sign up for our alerts so you can know when if there's any schedule changes what the topic is uh you can email us at info stark. org and we will set you up uh on the email list uh so today's topic uh is kous agencies and what where do we get along along where maybe we don't get along maybe sometimes uh what do we discuss when we get together and and and and um somebody sent me a uh a joke RAB we allowed to tell a joke here I think so uh he said that that that uh since khah just came he was reminded of the uh of the joke that is told about the the little jug of oil that was found with his signature of the kohen go uh in the in the temple and the Big Miracle was not that it lasted for 8 days but rather that everybody accepted it with that signature and they were a we were able to use it and we all uh we all got along so um but the truth is gentlemen I think that there's much more agreement among the agencies Than People realize and much more agreement than than disagreement in fact it's it's it's not even a question of much more virtually all cashus agencies are in total agreement because the the four or five major Coos agencies that certify the vast majority of koser ingredients and kosher products in the world we share all of our information with each other and if any of those agencies for example would drop out of being accepted by the other ones the the chaos that would be in the food industry would be incredible so it's kind of like the reason why we haven't had a nuclear war yet mutually assured destruction okay and it's this is not my analogy nobody should think that I'm taking rinic life license here this is analysis that was presented by a professor from New York I think uh from Albany Dr Timothy lton in his book about kosher and coacher certifications I never heard of that book Dr I didn't read it you never read Dr linton's book no Dr L is that required yes everybody has to read anybody's interested in the kosher industry and kosher agencies has got to read kosher by Dr Timothy lton Linton is spelled ly t t o n what's the book called the book is called koser and it's all about the coacher certification industry Dr l realized that coacher certification which has been around for about 100 years is the model for all kinds of certifications successful C third party certifications that are that exist in the food industry Jewish Dr Lon I believe is Jewish um and we met him at kosher Fest a couple years ago I know Dr poock our president consulted a lot in this uh in in the development of this book on kosher and he describes in this book of how the kosher the model of kosher certification is really the model for all kinds of third party certifications for example um food safety certification or Organic certification all those uh all those Industries model themselves on Coos certification it's because it's be the concept is is that each one of our agencies we certify a certain segment of the foods uh other companies require those Foods in order to be in order to make their products they may be certified by other agencies and this would be true if you're organic and this would be true if you're if for food safety reasons as well so in order for the industry to work we have to cooperate on standards right and we have to cooperate with each other it we do accept other many every day every day we accept vast majority hundreds of thousands of ingredients from other agencies inter agency now there are certainly are small differences which we definitely can uh which we definitely can discuss which are very interesting we will talk about maybe some of the star unique policies that the star k has based on our postan but the fact is the fact is is that we do accept everybody else's stuff and they accept our stuff and the reason why is because we have as Dr Linton describes our standards really are defined by we Define them all together because we we work have to work in lock step in order that all of our ingredients go where they have to go in order to make the food for example there's a group of of rabbis among agencies uh that that discusses which ingredients are really inherently kosher right like dirt dirt is in inherently kosher the clay well and it's used in our food right people don't realize that right dious Earth which is you know what dious Earth is does anybody any of our listeners know what damous Earth it's an absorbent it's a filter and does anybody know what dious earth is made out of probably dious Earth it's made out of it's made out of dried ground up insects or shells I think shells of something yeah that's what it is something like that but it's kosher okay the book uh I no I think I read that somewhere else the used the wine filtration it's used in many many areas I wonder if we have are we having sound trouble it says shash says the sound is not as loud uh as usual I do not know somebody's asking for the call in number let's give them the call in number call number again is 218 1203 Rabbi Chapman is there any sound issue are you okay I'm okay with the sound okay sounds great sh but we're glad to hear that 218 8951 1 1203 we thank all the people who have written in that they can hear fine and uh we will just tell those people who can't hear uh we're we're sorry that you can't hear it's probably on your end let's get back to um standards so in fact over the years in over the years there's an organization that has been developed in order to deal with those standards what's that R okay goe the association of kous organizations corre that's the that's the uh correct Mark right abbreviation AO AKO just lost you are we okay no you're back up we're back up it was down for like 5 Seconds okay so North Koreans the North Koreans maybe they have it out for the kosher inspectors so why don't we talk to buer a little bit about what AKO does you want to talk to me about it the resident expert on that well I mean for example was as far as I understand it um it's an organization that was put together um as a a venue for local um vesses or local organizations that that take care of kauas in various communities around the country to have a place where they can come together and discuss issues that uh that might arise um right there's a history it's it's rather been it's been around for a couple couple decades right it's been around for a while um I don't know who the Founding Father we may get in trouble if we get that wrong so let's leave that but Curr Bas being run by uh the CRC in Chicago right um fishbain right and his able staff and Rabbi sharp who's usually joins usually joins us for our webinars and the larger organizations have also gotten involved uh with AKO um so it's uh it's become kind of like a clearing house Organization for discussions on uh right so weers one of the things we want to discuss is we had this uh this um two-day seminar in uh in in capital camps actually was hosted by the star k so one of the things as as we go along we'll discuss some of the issues that came up there what do kous people discuss when they get together the kous Geeks you know what do we talk about and what what what is uh what goes on a little bit behind the scenes one of the interesting things things that AKO does is that in order to set standards that we all um similar um AKO has a has created many different subcommittees to deal with all kinds of different issues the the subcommittee I found most interesting is uh frequency of visits um there is a whole system of visit frequency for example visits of what how how often do we have to visit a factory like for example re buyer is a uh certifies a lot of chocolate factories in in his uh in his uh portfolio of of kosher companies so when he decides how to how how many times to visit the factories of course re hman who is the posek and final deiser of everything that happens at the star it's one of special Parts about the star is we have a resident posek that uh really makes all the decisions and he speaks with one voice but in addition to discussing that with Rabbi Hyman we always try to ensure that there is no conflict with any other uh with with any other standard that exists in the industry so for example if we have a if we have a factory that is very complicated how often do you think we would visit it depends depends what it is mean chocolate yeah at least monthly right so at at the very least and that's a that's a decision that that's a decision that is not only a starcade decision but it's a decision that's accepted in the entire industry now one of the reasons then that allows other agencies the inter agency acceptance because exactly and and and and and one of the things that people question is how come there are are some um lower standard agencies that we don't accept and this is one of the differences if they don't meet the the generally accepted uh visitation schedule well then how do we re know how can we really rely on that so the major agencies do meet that schedule and one of the big issues the reasons why those these things need to be standardized is because most of the cost of coacher certification is in those visits so if somebody lower standards says I don't have to visit that much I don't have to visit that much so they could charge less and the market forces push will push all the companies to go to them but because they're not going to be accepted their your coacher certification after a while the company realizes is not that valuable that answers for consumers a question why do I get calls sometimes I call up the star k i call the Stark kosher hotline 41484 4110 every kosher consumer's favorite phone number what was that again 41484 4110 every kosher consumer's favorite phone number and sometimes we'll say we have no information that means that you know it's not not something that we can uh we can confidently recommend and a lot of times that's the reason uh you know a classic example that I experienced once when I was a rabbi in Phoenix is there was once uh a product that was available in one of the big local big box stores and it had a heer that I did not recognize and I called everybody's favorite kosher number and and I called the Stark and they said there was this very quiet I'm sorry we can't help you about the product and that bothered me because this was the only koser product of this kind of product that was available in the whole state of Arizona so I figured I'm some sort of alcoholic beverage or something no it was actually it was it was actually a product that came from overseas from China a very hard place to do supervision that would require hash to this constant supervision constant constant supervision whenever the product is run we have RAB so what happened was is that what happened was is I figured listen you know I'm hungry and so were all the all of my people in Phoenix and so I I'm going to need to make my own phone call so I called the raak the rabbi in charge of this agency to inquire about the supervision that he gave for it he says oh it's a great supervision he says he says I go there for half a month and the other half a month I I watch the video cameras so I said to them how much of a staff you have he says we're two or three people um how many how many companies do you have we have a few hundred companies that we certify and he spends half a month in the one Factory that requires full-time supervision and the other half he sits at home just watching the videos watching the videos I would assume that he has other companies to take care of so I understood right away that their standards of certification were not exactly as stringent as um what would normally be accepted so I asked the re I said tell me when you do when you're there you know half a month are you only in that one Factory he says no well you're not going in the morning it's an all kosher Factory you know I said well but isn't this the type of thing that requires full-time supervision he said yes that's why I'm there half a month and and I watched the video so I I I quickly understood that that his definition and not that he was being dishonest his definition of full-time supervision is full-time checking things out you know go in every day and then leave and work on my other 200 factories and and you know look at the video once in a while to see that you know there was nothing non coaster but then you know the casers agencies require full-time supervision it was a very sensitive item and uh you want to tell us what it was fish actually fish it was fish actually and fish you know we know white fleshed fish that has no skin on it um you would have no idea whether it was kosher or not cuz it looks just like non Kosher fish right um and it's you're basically that is uh you know very difficult to avoid it's very difficult to so now now you knew why we didn't accept it and I understood that the star k was actually telling me something that was uh you know it was true and it was responsible even though it made me extremely unhappy another point where we get along is is uh let's say you have uh uh two comp two uh companies producing in the same facility it's possible to have two companies that produce in the same manufacturing facility but those two companies are certified by different agencies for whatever reason one wants to have a star k one wants to have a different certification uh you know business decisions whatever goes into it uh we often will use the same Mas the same Rabbi who's going in there uh we rely on the same people very often because he knows what what we expect uh if there are maybe you know what the star is looking for he knows exactly what to what to do there and so we you that saves money it's it's good for us it's good for the certifying agencies it's good for the companies it's good for the consumers so that's a that's a that's an area we definitely have happens every day so that's another thing um okay is there any other areas where we have well a lot of times there there are topics that are very complex you know that that require a lot of expertise and it's not clear and we have to build consensus um for example um shmita this is the shmita year which we've spoken about in the past and there's a plethora of opinions about shita and um shmita is shita presents serious cashous challenges to Consumer outside of Earth Israel and um you know AKO had a lot of discussions about how we're how we're going to deal with it and so you know honestly the AKO played a very important role in making decisions and and and it's not only about Ako you know really it's about other agencies talking to each other and many agencies felt that it's just impossible for us to it's impossible for us to deal with um challenges like that uh that shmita presents we can deal with it we thought that the companies would be would be confused by it because there are so many details that it's correct so basically produce from uh it has to stay in AR during this time to follow all those all those that's a consensus among the agencies there's a small uh type there's small amount of produce that comes from certain areas that are not really considered AR but other than that you know that's something where the agencies cooperate on how much isra produce uh comes on on a yearly basis well it's amazing there there is a lot I also read that the uh that because of the problems with the rubble in Russia um they export a lot of produce to Russia and now they're stuck because they're not buying Russia is not buying so what are they going to do with it there are peppers all over the United States right now Peppers we may actually put alert about that peppers and I think they're big in parsley I got a lot of calls about the uh the oranges in Costco the the clementines in Costco they're from Israel that's not yet a that's not yet a problem not a shita problem not a not a sabatical year problem but it's an issue of uh every year there's you have to take care of the produce of Israel in certain way uh right it's not a shita issue um so we take some of these questions okay TT some questions let's see let's go back a little bit um let's see what we have here trying to get it if most of the companies most of the kosher market doesn't keep kosher why do the companies want a higher level okay that's a general question about why why is kosher so uh successful thank God in America well I I I think I can answer Michael's question I mean honestly you know the the distin between the the the cost of koser is minuscule compared to production costs uh it's it's it's you know there's no it's not a meaningful cost for any company of any significant size it makes sense that they certify them they get certified in a way that's unquestioned so they understand that the Orthodox supervisions uh you are recognized by all people who are interested in kosher be they Jewish or not be the eating Kosher for reasons of following Jewish law or keeping for other reasons so they just you know they said let's go with something that's a no-brainer it's it's the same with the food safety industry or the organic industry or the vegan industry right many times it doesn't add any extra cost to them the cost is negligible in the product Cheerios Cheerios for instance doesn't cost anymore because has certification no Mass Market product does the mass Market product actually kosher makes it cheaper because it expands the market for the company okay fair enough um so let's look about the the rules uh for for seems to be some interest in in the seventh year so shash it's very simple if you see Peppers that say made in the produce of Israel this year you should not buy them and the reason why is because there's a rinic decree that vegetables that grew in the land of Israel during shita are not permitted to eat now it's beyond the scope of this um it's beyond the scope of this webinar to talk about the details of those of those laws we should have a whole we need a whole and how people in Israel you know eat vegetables where they come from but basically when prod comes from Israel as much as we want to support Israel when it comes from sh without supervision we have absolutely no way of being able to guide a consumer how to how to eat those eat those peppers and I'm not sure where should them give them away to it's problematic it depends depends where the where the no RAB buyer is asking a good question it really depends when uh normally if they're really me the peppers you're not allow to buy them you're not all to give away to an you're not do anything with them um the sh question why there are not alerts well it depends where you live I mean you know there are alerts in some of our communities and in fact uh in fact we do our best to make sure in our certified places that uh you know they don't come in you can catch that stuff Market we take care of it there in the larger communities they'll they'll M are aware of it and they'll be right the rabbis the kosher agencies are doing the work um uh we could talk about uh um somebody else asked the question I think about is a similar to the sale of where the many farms in Israel what is that word what are those words we translate those words is where they sell the land of Israel to non-jews uh for or part or Farms to non-jews for um during the shmita year and according to certain opinions you know that would resolve the challenge of the problem of shmita and this is an old discussion whether it's acceptable or it's not acceptable it's generally accepted that that is really considered you know extreme an extreme leniency and because of that whether it's appropriate you know for Israel because you know people in Israel need to eat is one thing but it's it's also generally accepted certainly among cashous agencies we've uh come to a consensus uh that that that's certainly not appropriate for people who have access to uh you know product that has no questions and certainly kosher so therefore outside the land of Israel you know in in our world uh in the United States there is no uh agency that I'm aware of that will accept that will accept product somebody asked something that we must go back to only the Orange is not a problem she or now also the peppers uh I don't know who you are ym but um uh the fruit that we see on the market today is from last year is from last year because the fruit is in Israel is only going to flow uh in a couple of months around PES time and it will only be harvested you know you know in next uh like around now the vegetables are from this year the vegetables are already from this year so the fruit is not a problem sh but as mentioned you have to take Trum the ties have to be removed and there's a there are there's a nice description about how to do that on star.org we also have an article about shita about the thetical year on it we just had one maybe Rabbi Chapman can put up the link to it because what what's that we we are uh you know there there is so much to talk about about shita that like you said it's beyond the scope let's go back to the differences between some of the agencies I see a lot I see a lot of questions here about that means maybe we should have a different weinar about but but this is not for this is not for now and there really isn't any any um I mean most of the agencies are really trying to avoid the Israeli produce that's basically the way that we're dealing with it like you mentioned um so there are distinctions sometimes between the agencies in in in h in policy uh we we mentioned before about the fish the Stark's uh stricter policy about fish there are a few things that re and and star is is is um as I'm sure has mentioned many times in the webinar it's one of uh one of the unique things about the star is we have one who makes all the final and uh he's our POC for everything so there are a host of things that we as rabbis sometimes RAB by and I were talking about one of the uh challenges the other day is that we have a host of things that from where he has a high standard than his industry than the industry standard and when we certify things we have to be very careful about them now the most famous one is of course that everything that has a star on it is called V the simple star that when it is dairy is always called V jewi milk um which is which is milk that was supervised by M from the milking um right right so anything with star k that's Dairy right now there are we do certify with a different Simple Start which is not the r for um uh Reg regular milk that does exist uh it's under the ages of the National Council of Young Israel for those people who have that question uh but um another area which is not well known uh something RAB Bay and I talked about the other day and maybe RAB can explain to us the challenge with what is called in Hebrew Kos Shan I don't know if I can explain the challenge in 30 seconds go ahead it's a it's a Passover question having to do with um kitos kitos is is our Le or or those types of items that the rabbis enacted laws are prohibiting the consumption of kidus during Passover so uh in modern times that that basically applies to corns and and Rices and things like that but there are a lot of food chemicals that are widely used in in the food industry that are um made from kitos uh such as citric acid which is a very widely used uh preservative uh and flavoring agent and um many citric a acids come from kidneys from corn uh and that's considered what's called kidne Shana or kidos that's been changed that the form of the kidne has been changed so there are opinions in in h and and andak that that would be allowed by the rabbis on Passover but RAB hinan um feels and he's strict in this that we should not allow kidney any products with a starcade not having them many in my own experience like we're talking about candies and things so citric acids used very Wily in the candy industry and and um so anytime we've been able you know been involved in certifying something for PES we've always had to make sure that the citric acid was made special uh from a non-kidney source right so so this is something that's a difference between some agencies and it's up to the kosher consumer we we we publicize this we we write about it it's all you know we the differences are are we hope are are known and uh we put that information out there for sometimes we do accept we do we do accept K well depends on the sit depends situation you don't want to get involved in that like like diet sodas on Passover so our time is moving along here and this is uh this is um just want to get to all the things that we had said can you discuss why some products have multiple Hees especially in Israel but sometimes also in the US that's a great that's a great question if we're all getting along why multiple and the answer is really simple just because just because will accept what each others do does not mean that all consumers will accept it right so for example if R buyer gives a certification on candy and his candy carries a star k there may be an area in the country where it helps the company to have a second certification on it for example you know sometimes in the community this is common but some sometimes it's not about a a local as much as as much as is about um identification recognition identif people just don't know what it is for example we see Products that come out of uh that come out of South Africa for example with a house from the South African B from star k um in South Africa I don't know if they're familiar with star k or not but they're certainly familiar with the South African but they didn't look like that in Canada also you don't have to go so far a field right Canada as well people people recognize the Canadians question necessarily recogniz I got a question today and two questions today about candidate certifications that's about the average people do not recognize candidate for certifications even though we work closely with them and they are they're definitely they're definitely uh you know respected Co certification agencies but people don't recognize them so sometimes multiple certifications are just about marketing sometimes it's about communities and sometimes it is about standards um uh you know a quick a quick example a I think I would say classic example is um uh I can give you an example right away what is that I mean we have I I take care of also in paper and pan liner papers and parchment papers and things like that so we have a company that we certify that has a star and also has the certification from the new Square uh Kress agency so there's an example of a of a of a situation like you were speaking about where the local requires them to carry both certifications or they have to start for the greater Jewish and then they have the new Square certification to take care of the commun to and this is part from the people Bon people bacon yes correct right so so somebody here made a point I think and I like the way you spell your name because you spell it like me and re Goldberg spell her name so we want to make sure the nature of the disag agreement of K sh we should just make something clear I don't know why it's not clear but we're going to make it very clear we don't have am among respected kosher agencies we have nothing negative to say about an agency that has a has a has a has a different standard than we have different than we have because among among agencies that are respected it means that we're all following we're all working with that makes sense that's the nature of there are disagreements open up any any uh any safer you see the multitude of opinions AB that's and that's absolutely true um you know another you know another uh you know a classic demonstration of this is the fact that the Stark a um is a agency and RAB hman is not not ra who certify non is but at the same time we do administrate the stard on behalf of the National Council of Young Israel and uh we respect that and doesn't have a problem that it's another uh it's not it's not less it's not less it's different it is pretty much accepted that it is considered a to somebody who would be somebody who would be stringent should be blessed but that doesn't mean that uh somebody who follows a different uh opinion that they're inferior AB absolutely not that's not that was not our point and it's worth it thank you make that very clear I want to move on let's we did promise that we're going to discuss about some of the things that went on at the last AKO convention and that's a great idea but before before we move on I want I want to I want to I want to um address a lot of the questions that are coming up in the chat anybody who has a cous question um it's very hard to answer all these questions in a webinar how can they get in touch with us there are two ways to get in touch with us one is the most amazing part about the starc number one of our unique one of our no my cell number is not for webinars uh but one of the unique things about the starc is that we answer consumer questions on a grand scale last year we believe that we answered over 150,000 consumer questions Stark is the only major nonprofit kosher agency dedicated only to kosher invests in helping the community to educate the community and this is one of the ways we do that you can call everybody's favorite kosher phone number 41484 41100 during regular business hours you can email us you can email us as well at Star kk.org and you will get an answer as well you can go to our website submit a question or search our website um is there a star k app wants to know there is star app on the way we have a PES app for medicines that was out last year and there will be uh there will be God willing U as soon as the world of technology catches up the world of C we will have in half as well um uh you know Zev made this point about uh National ad it's here in Star uh we are uh blessed to have Clarity our is one choice uh is one choice and uh One Voice hanman makes those decisions and we're pleased to have a world-renowned PK like him to rely on let's go to AKO okay so we let's discuss what we did we had about uh 40 agencies represented I counted them up um and uh at at this two-day seminar uh which was in Pennsylvania hosted by the star k and uh there were many many various topics that were discussed one that before we talk about the topics let's talk about who was there so there National agencies there were National agencies like Star which is all over the world the U which is all over the world the KK the CRC the okay um which are agencies that are really you know International agencies that really they call them the big five so to speak um and there are certifications all over the world in all kinds of food from Candy to quinoa to meat to Caterers to restaurants to uh calcium carbonate which is broken up rocks uh all those kinds of things and it was as small small as tiny little agencies that had one employee who is the ra who is the kous administrator and the Mas and they also attended right far away as New Zealand Australia Australia New Zealand Australia RAB Rabbi gnik deserves he deserves a shout out and uh we work with them actually we work a lot with them sure right and and and and one of the beauties of it is that the smaller agencies can have you know contact and access like that with the larger agencies that obviously we have more resources um and one one of that one of the just along those lines one of the discussions was one of the smaller agencies discussed how can they get along they don't have an in-house programmer like Stark does and the other a other large agencies we have people working on our our database um smaller agencies obviously can't afford that so what how do what tools can they use to to be able to get the results that they need that was one of the issues um anything else about the agencies so that we're there calcium carbonate is not crushed bugs it's crushed rocks calcium carbonate okay okay you mentioned something before that Earth was crushed bugs dious earth right that's right okay um yep let's go okay so there was a very interesting session about the the concern about party planners um is planner some that's what it says it really says it think Chapman's wife is a party planner here at the star no here at the star oh the star party plan okay so you you uh you have an event a wedding or a Sim and you you have a cater obviously to prepare the food but you may also have a party plan who's going to put everything else together the flowers the favors the the the seaing uh do many many different aspects of the of this Of The Party The Sim that that the cader will not handle one of the things that sometimes they do is also provide some Extra Foods uh candies for the tables candies for the children uh and and and so on now you you are certifying this event you star or whatever agency uh you're certifying the caterer so the event is under your uh supervision there's a sign there that says your name on it right people are relying on you but meanwhile the party planners uh is is helpful but they're sort of coming like sort of from the side and getting in them and bringing things that aren't necessarily approved by the by the agency so how do we deal with that with that issue how do the agencies handle it um it was it was a major uh discussion yeah so what were the suggestions some of the suggestions were that the uh that we certified part lers put yes put your foot down that you know you shouldn't allow New Market for certification I think that was a St suggestion you should we shouldn't know that that if a caterer is going to have work with a party planner we should we should uh insist that everything be passed by the the agencies uh issues were brought up with that the caterer himself doesn't always know that there's a party planner or he he he you know they don't know what the party planner is going to do the party planner can give out you know can be bringing a popcorn machine which maybe kosher but der at a at a meat event or planer might be might be bringing party favors you know put out milk chocolates that have like the couple of a wedding I think it's important to mention that these party planners many times are themselves Orthodox kosher keeping Jews and who won't NE necessarily mean this they don't mean in a bad way does it doesn't really matter whether we need we need to be on top of it um one of the counter issues was if we make the Caterers responsible for the party planners uh trinkets the the Caterers sometimes rely on the party plans to the party PL sometimes recommends the caterer to the to the host so a little bit of a so they're the ones in charge and you can tell the cat very well you know so it it was something that we uh you know that that needs needs uh needed a discussion um one of the sessions was about locks it was actually very interesting locks and locks no cream cheese and locks no locks on on on on refrigerators locks where you're trying to lock up a a storehouse from somebody you need for kosher reasons to keep it secure and uh and it it was some of of an eye opener how you sometimes you can get around those those locks that it's not necessarily as secure as you might think right that was uh you you enjoyed that session I think over yeah I think everybody did yeah I just one the GU the person who was presenting it right was was he was a rabbi from Canada I think and he was an an expert lock picker it made us all Wonder like what did he do in his previous life okay so um it just showed you that that a lock is is not quite effective and then the question becomes then if you can rely on a lock then Hally speaking where does that put you right well right there was discussion about that also um whether or not you really need to have 100% foolproof locks does really acire that or just to make it difficult enough that a person would not uh would not uh try it and and what could you do to what could an agency do to to to ensure that even though the lock is not foolproof you can go visit when it's off hours when it's supposed to be locked right and and and and see that no one's trying to get in you can make uh inspections when it's not open right there so that was uh there were some of the suggestions that we had um also how do you deal with it from on on chabis uh how do you deal with it right so that some of the locks are are digital now well part of the challeng is is that not only do we have to figure out you know what the what the challenges are with the locks but we also have to determine the doesn't require that's what foolproof H is always fond of saying doesn't require foolproof security there is is no such thing as foolproof security until it's foolproof until the first person who tries to break it succeeds so the question is what do we need to do not only we need to understand what the weaknesses are in the locks but we also need to do know understand what we need to do in order to meet requirements I mean everybody knows a dedicated criminal can I mean you lock your door in your house right you feel secure everybody knows if somebody really wants to get in that they they're going to but that you know that doesn't make it that your house is not uh is completely considered insecure um okay that was another interesting one um cous insecurities cous and insecurity also you can add a a seal to the lock itself that was another issue brought up you can add a seal that if it would be broken other words if it' be open then then we'd be able to know that it was open and then we can can deal with it at that at that point um there was a session about Mash visits when the rabbi goes into the into the U factor factor what does he need to be aware of and what what is he trying to convey to the agency the the the home office uh um that they that the M should be very careful not to speak about other companies that they visit you know you're trying to develop a rapport say yeah well I was just at another company this morning and this is what they did and I found this problem there no you can't you can't have that the mash has to uh keep everything confidential even though the the companies may try to draw him out right they want to get some some information uh but he should be very careful not not to do that now let's take some of some of the are there any any um questions here uh if you try to make something foolproof they will come up with a better fool okay uh scroll up um let's see how do we get to some of the D says the K agencies to clarify the dis differences for example paspal okay that's I mean we tried we we don't we we don't our policies are pretty much out there I think you know we try to to disseminate as much as possible well I mean certainly to St here with rever Goldberg with this wonderful webinar series on our website and Cash's currence a lot of our information is out there I think Do's question is as a consumer when you go to the store how can you know the difference how does he know the difference there was there was a a magazine in New York that that uh I once dealt with they were trying to do exactly what D is saying they they they pulled all the agencies what's your policy on this what's your policy on that and put it in like a grid form and then put it out there for the consumer so in the ma as far as major agencies are concerned I believe that those policies are clear major agencies are very careful to go ahead and label things if they're if they Etc and and things like that they're they're pretty good about labeling those things um I think that but how would they know the how would the consumer know the small small I think small details are very very difficult to know um I once spoke to a a very small agency and the rabbi told me look it's my name people who want to rely on me should rely on me it doesn't matter what why how how and why I made those decisions um I don't have the capacity to deal with that question about what all my standards are and I don't have any interest uh and his reason you know his reasoning was is look I'm taking responsibility for it you know that that that definitely makes sense on a certain level if that's the way that we if that's the way I think the world is moving away from but we live in an information generation it was a local a local it was a local a local type agency and he says look you can rely on me and that's it and it's true you know I think consumers by asking um will find out more uh when an agency ask another agency to do that you know obviously we're not his boss I've had calls people call up you know they ask to speak to a rabbi they and they want to know if this star k is actually reliable I you know you're call for me no they use those words you mean they ask is this star k reliable they ask if the Stark is reli you're talking to the star k what are we going to say no it's not right so that's what SP is asking is there any place where an individual can see all the differences in one you know in one one page we never and and I I I've never seen such a thing and you know and again the question really becomes and this is really a question that that goes to the core of Rabbi Goldberg's um weekly U monthly webinar which is is you know how much is too much to know I mean how much about medicine do we know which doctors are reliable do we know know which attorneys are reliable do you know how good they are do we know the differences of attorneys that's not the way we deal with it how much information is too much information you need a lot of knowledge in order to determine like for example if I tell you that we have a use an example we have a coffee company that we go every single day to the Coffee Company doesn't that sound great to the average consumer to check on it that's like wow I'm going to buy that coffee that's for sure must be giving out free coffee maybe they're giving free coffee to the rabbi which is a whole other but recognize but but recognize um but recognize that this is a significant uh this is a significant uh case that somebody where people who know about kosher uh are going to react different Co supervision react people wonder where where is this what place do we go people go if you go visit a coffee company every single day so I would never eat from that certification because there is nothing there's no reason to go to a coffee hypothetical I thought I thought you right meaning meaning a lot of times people say things you know in our place we do this but you know it doesn't mean much to the average consumer it just sounds really good you know and you know that you know some people would call it politics I would just call it how people are trying to one upmanship or people trying to get more uh you know business or you know you know more more people to you know think that they're better even though it doesn't necessarily make sense so I think a lot of agencies don't want to necessarily you know get caught up in that uh you know in in in details I don't know how practical that is but the major H differen is uh I think that s's point is a significant Point um the major agencies um I we communicate with small agencies and local rub on them all the time because they do have the expertise we talked about this at AKO at length about how large agencies and small agencies and local robam should work together we do try to help the agencies as possible they call us all the time here at the star we we invest a tremendous amount of time and I'm sure the other agencies do I just don't know that they I I don't have personal knowledge of it I'm sure they do because everybody has the questions local rim and local V they call us all the time they ask all this kind of information they're equipped to understand it as a matter of fact the more that they call us with questions about things that they they don't they don't know um the more we could rely on them because we see that they're they're seeking out the answers right that gives us some confidence to rely on on the on the smaller agencies right but the you know as far as the larger agen concerned we work together you know hand in hand dealing with all kinds of vs in fact we share a database the universal kosher database with a ukd uh our products we share every evening they get synced up so everybody knows if a product wasn't kosher yesterday I received an alert from one of our database kosher database Specialists that uh certain cotton seed oil is no longer certified by I believe it was theou and it's used in one of my factories that's so we we alerted immediately so we can check it out right that's the magic of our computer we certifi you know about 100,000 things and there there I think the last time I looked there were more than 2 million ingredients in the database and the database trolls and figures out you know what is no longer certified and where it's being used so we can which Rabbi needs to into that so we can be in touch with the plant and with the m to make sure that everything uh remains kosher so I'm just going to finish up here RAB H in in the last couple minutes of of different uh other different things that were discussed um uh uh we we discussed um bug check re T was there check discussed bug checking checking for insects what you need to look for what the agencies uh need to need to be aware of uh we discussed the apps for phones like there's one magnifying app that you can you want to look to see a bug right so sometimes it may be hard to see identified exactly uh so you have an app on the phone that will help you magnify using the camera magnify the bug so you can see exactly uh what it is behind him in spoke about seals uh Kos how do you seal uh meat I'm sure re Holland could give us a couple hours of discussion about that about the meat issue uh he mentioned that when you want to right when the meat is is is warm uh just after it's been slaughtered you make a mark on it and then as as the meat cools it will solidify and it's imposs that's that's a seal that's impossible to forge on a on a large uh slab of meat of course there's other tags and so on on the meat as well we discussed uh the star s that's your your your department the star s which is a certification that the star has uh for safin that takes care of the issues there's a difference between some differences between the ashkenazim the ashkenazic Jews and the stic Jews RAB you had you had a session there as well right we talked about cooperation between agencies uh which is I think the reason why I got roped into sitting here today and and and and and one thing I think everybody should hear I see a lot of questions over here in general in general most things are basically agreed on and so somebody asked about bug checking I see you know the big tumult this week is a brewhaha about orangee I was in Lakewood New Jersey in the we we are still accepting it yes we I was in Lakewood New Jersey in uh the world's largest yiva uh or the second largest yiva the lake with Isa well where I was with a group of rabbis that we were doing some education with and uh that was the talk in the Cod Room all about the orange juice and I explained to them that actually the starc cas certifies at the source a good part uh you know 30 40 50 60% of the orange juice uh that you see in the in the United States um and that includes all the all you know all the major brands uh that you're familiar with and uh yes and there's a lot of consensus about the orange juice in fact re Hinman uh went carefully through and look examined the bugs himself and we did you know weeks and weeks of testing on it and recently we sent two of our bug experts to speak with Feinstein um who also examined it and um it's accepted among the major agencies that the issues with the orange ju do not present a cashes issue but only after a lot of very careful checking and I do know that when I discussed it with r and some other rabbis R said look that in the event that there was a there was that we were going to find a significant amount of whole bugs in those orange juices that he would seriously consider revisiting the question if not for concentrated orangers should have a coach certification so far we but concentrated orangers certainly did never even presented a problem and currently uh with the testing that we've done and the information that we've had both uh reab hak and our communication with other agencies and an independent postum uh we are we are accepting uh not for concentrated orange juice throughout the industry s Holland I think we've come to the end of our uh of our webinar we're a little bit over time um I want to thank all our listeners for joining us and thank you RAB H and rabie Bayer for joining this discussion uh we hope to see you next month God willing uh on the last Wednesday of the month at noon at the same web address again if you want to sign up to be alerted when the webinar is send an email to info@ stark. org or you want to know the topic or um from time to time there is a change so we'll let you know exactly what's happening if you have any questions you can email us there or call call us at 41484 4110 I'm sorry we couldn not get to all your questions here but again you're welcome to contact us and uh and we'll be happy to address it this webinar and all our webinars are archived at a number of places one of them our Vimeo channel uh YouTube channel kosher class.org and you can see there we had very last month a very interesting discussion with Dr poik the president of Stark about food safety and and um and how how it interacts with kis and we've had some interesting webinars recently about about mes what does a what does a p mza look like what should you be on the alert for and those are all at at those sites we mentioned any last final words from RAB Bayer RAB hen um thanks for uh a great year cous thanks for joining tomorrow is is a is a Jewish fast day we all wish you all an easy fast and hope to see you next time take care take care bye bye