Traif chickens plucked from kosher shelves

new york | A recent case of retail fraud could lead to wholesale changes in the kosher meat industry.

The changes were discussed at two recent meetings of high-level rabbis and kashrut supervisors, one at the Orthodox Union headquarters in Manhattan and another in the heavily Orthodox neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn. The meetings came after a kosher grocery in Monsey, N.Y., was found selling non-kosher chickens under a kosher label in early September.

According to reports, wholesaler Shevach Meats was stocking the shelves of its Hatzlocha Grocery with cheaper, non-kosher chicken that it repackaged and labeled as kosher.

The owner of Shevach Meats was outed after a slaughterhouse that was one of his suppliers realized Shevach Meats was still selling its product — even though the slaughterhouse had stopped supplying Shevach, according to Rabbi Menachem Genack, head of kashrut supervision for the Orthodox Union. Shevach Meats is supervised by a private rabbi in Monsey, not by the Orthodox Union.

The discovery caused a panic in areas that Shevach serves, ranging from Rockland County, a half-hour outside New York City, to upstate New York.

But what happened in Monsey could lead to tighter supervision at kosher retailers across the country — and that added supervision could end up costing consumers at the checkout line.

Genack stressed that it was not a problem of kosher slaughterhouses providing non-kosher meat, but a lack of supervision along the distribution chain from slaughterhouse to store.

While the Orthodox Union supervises slaughterhouses, the middlemen in the distribution chain and the retail stores fall under the auspices of local kashrut organizations.

Genack attended the Yiddish-language meeting in Brooklyn — held the week after Shevach Meats was outed — which included representatives from numerous Chasidic kashrut supervising organizations. Another meeting, at O.U. headquarters, included the owners of several kosher slaughterhouses, including Empire Chickens, Aaron's Rubashkin and International Glatt, as well as the rabbis that supervise their plants.