The Kosher Video - English

The kosher cake depicted in this video was produced at Drake Bakeries Incorporated in Wayne, New Jersey. All products produced at this facility are certified kosher. Any reference to non-coosher products or ingredients at the Wayne plant is fictional and for the purpose of illustration only and done so with the permission of Drake Bakeries Incorporated. Today, more than ever, we've become extremely conscious of what's in the food we eat. As a result, food manufacturers are now producing food products that are fat-ree, sugarf free, and even salt free. What's more, because of our increasing demand for healthier food, the government now requires that manufacturers clearly label these products with their ingredients and nutritional value. [Music] [Applause] [Music] There's also one symbol on many of the products we eat. And for millions of discerning consumers, this little symbol means a lot. Known as the OU, this symbol informs us that this product is certified kosher. The O around the U stands for the Orthodox Union. It's the largest and oldest kosher certification organization in the world. For Jews, eating kosher is a crucial part of a meaningful tradition more than 3,000 years old. It's surprising to note, however, that Jewish consumers aren't the only ones who scan the supermarket shelves looking for kosher products. Others seek out such highly reliable kosher symbols such as the OU for an extra level of supervision. Millions of consumers depend on the OU to help safeguard the integrity and high standards of the kosher foods they eat, usually without costing them one extra scent. Kosher supervision usually helps keep food costs down since it opens up new markets to the manufacturer. Within the last 10 years, the kosher food market has exploded. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of products on supermarket shelves that are certified kosher. This trend has prompted Food and Wine Magazine and Rolling Stone to tag kosher as one of the decad's hot food trends. The New York Times business section asserted that affixing a kosher stamp on the face of a product has become the '9s equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. But just what does this kosher certification mean? For those that think kosher is traditional food like bagels and cream cheese, or that it's food blessed by a rabbi, they couldn't be farther from the truth. The primary laws of kosher are in fact biblical commandments. Kosher, which is the Hebrew word for proper, encompasses a broad category of food that the Bible allows Jews to eat. For over 3,000 years, rabbitic scholars have applied the biblical principles of kosher to everchanging situations, recording their decisions in thousands of volumes. This vast and rich collection of biblical and rebbitic law is the basis of all kosher law. [Music] Non-coosher foods are certain animals, insects, and fish that the Bible forbids Jews to eat. For example, pork and rabbit, frog legs, shellfish, and catfish are not kosher. Furthermore, kosher animals can become non-cooser if they're not slaughtered in the painless manner prescribed by Jewish law. There are also special requirements for processing certain foods such as cheese, wine, and grape juice. Consumers know that the food they're buying meets these kosher requirements when they see this symbol on the product. This is the assurance that the product meets the high standards of kosher supervision. What does it take to have a product become kosher certified? At their plant, Drakes, a leading bakery products company, is developing a new cake. Here in the product development kitchen, part of the process of creating a new product is applying for kosher certification. Why does this unassuming cake need kosher supervision? Obviously, the recipe contains no non-cooser meat, fish, or insects. It may not be as obvious as you think. Often there are non-coosher byproducts in the least likely foods. [Music] Each ingredient is recorded and the detailed breakdown of the ingredients is sent to the OU for its announcements. The OU's network of trained experts start by analyzing the ingredient list while carefully guarding all confidential information. Sure. They were they produced each ingredient in the cakes recipe is analyzed using a constantly updated database of over 100,000 ingredients. [Music] What did the experts at the OU find out about this unassuming cake? Well, we found that the sprinkles on top of the cake, the red sprinkles were made from carmine. Carmine is an extract of the female catchal insect. The Bible says that you're not allowed to eat insects, hence any insect derived ingredient would be inherently non-cooser. Another ingredient on the list was emulsifiers. Emulsifiers make ingredients mix when they normally can't. These emulsifiers in the cake weren't certified kosher. And emulsifiers always need proper kosher supervision since they can be made from either non-cooser animal fat or kosher vegetable oil. The third concern was the butter flavor. A flavor can be made of dozens of components and those components are divided into subunits and subunits of subunits. When kosher certifying a flavor, all of those subunits have to be kosher. You'd be surprised what we found when we explored four generations of a butter flavor. We discovered that the butter flavor contained a butter oil that was modified by an enzyme that grew on a medium that contained ground non-cooser animal tissue. Though this tissue in the butter flavor is a fourth generation subunit and would certainly not be listed on the label, its presence will make the cake non-coosher. This non-cooser animal tissue is just one of the countless possibilities of non-cooser subunits. Believe it or not, there are all kinds of products that contain ingredients you wouldn't expect. Cherry soda, for example, may contain castorum, a flavor enhancer that comes from beavers, which are non-cooser. And foods with lemon flavoring may contain the flavor enhancer civet. Civot is non-cooser because it's extracted from a non-cooser African cat-like mammal. To deal with all these concerns, food companies don't have to totally change their recipes. Rather, the U helps them find kosher sources for their ingredients without compromising their products integrity. Do these other sources have to be OU certified? Ingredients from other cautious supervising agencies can and are used, but only on a case-bycase basis to make sure that the level of supervision is equivalent to O to the OU's level and the standards are in place meet our standards. There can be differences in both in terms of level and honest disputes about issues of cautious law and therefore we want to make sure that the ingredients that we're using are consistent with the levels and standards that we've established. In the case of our cake, all the questionable ingredients were changed to meet OU standards. Just as the ingredients in the cake's formula must be kosher, the equipment used in its production must also be kosher. How can equipment become non-cooser? Generally, if the equipment is used for processing non-coosher product with heat, the equipment will become non-coosher. Here it's discovered that the company is also producing a pie that contains lard or pig fat. What's more, it's being produced on the same equipment as the kosher cake, which will render our cake non-cosher. [Music] In this situation, the company agreed to replace the lard with kosher vegetable shortening. A trained U inspector makes routine visits to the plant, ensuring that the high standard of kosher law is adhered to at the facility. Once equipment becomes non-coosher, it takes a process called kosherization to make it kosher again. The equipment is thoroughly cleaned and the non-cooser ingredients are purged through either boiling water or extreme heat. Kosherization process went very quickly and smoothly. By having OU in place, it helped to make the certification process go very uh easily. During the manufacturing stage, the OU's trained rabbitic inspector visits the plant to monitor ingredients, equipment, and labels to ensure that there are no changes that will affect the kosher status of the cake. The OU applies age-old kosher traditions to the most advanced and sophisticated methods of modern food production. When ingredients enter the plant, the receiving doc personnel check to make sure that each ingredient is labeled as kosher. In addition, the company has a contractual obligation to ensure that all the ingredients that are used in the plant are those approved by the OU. The new cake has now passed inspection of its ingredients and their many subunits as well. The equipment used in its production has also passed inspection. A new kosher food is born. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Well, we're not done yet. It's not just the food and the equipment, but we also have to make sure the packaging is okay. The OU now decides what kosher symbol will go on the cake's packaging. There are two main types of OU symbols. The first is UD. The D stands for dairy. This is used for foods that contain milk, milk derivatives, or foods that are made on dairy equipment. We must always identify foods with milk because kosher law strictly forbids eating anything that contains milk with or directly after meat. The other symbol used is simply an OU. This indicates that the food is neutral, neither dairy or meat-based. These products are sometimes labeled carb and can always be eaten with milk or meat. Since our cake has real butter in it, the packaging is labeled OU D to alert customers of its dairy status. [Music] While our employees here at the plant don't necessarily know what kosher certification means, it is still important to them. When they see the OU Rabbi come around, they know it gives them a good feeling. It shows that it mean that it's important that a that the products here that we produce are top quality, that we're being inspected by an outside source, and that that just it gives them a good feeling about what they're producing, and that means a lot. When I come into a plant, I feel a personal responsibility to all the millions of consumers. We're checking ingredients. We're checking all the deliveries. We're looking over the plant to make sure it lives up to the obligations it's made to those consumers through the OU. We have an obligation to maintain the highest level of quality and integrity that the U stands for. We have been kosher certified here for over 40 years. It means a lot to us. It shows that we care about our customers and what is important to them. After becoming kosher certified, one pastry maker attributed an annual increase in income of $5 million. And a beer company raised its national market share by 1/3. This helps explain why the kosher food market is booming. And at the forefront of kosher certification is the OU. You can now find the U symbol in close to 200,000 products in over 56 countries. From emulsifiers from South America to enzymes from Japan, vegetable oil from Malaysia, and flavorings from Europe. When you think about it, it's pretty amazing that these products and their ingredients are supervised by hundreds of inspectors who visit thousands of plants throughout the world. [Music] As the number of kosher food products multiplies dramatically and as we grow more conscious of what we eat, the kosher phenomena becomes increasingly relevant to both the manufacturers of food products as well as to all consumers. As for me, well, after learning the history of kosher and understanding the scrutiny and care that goes into every OU product, well, eating a cake will never be quite the same. [Music] [Applause] [Music]