Kosher Issues in Canned Vegetables - Part 3

Continued from: Kosher Issues in Canned Vegetables - Part 2

4. Diversified packaging

Any production facility is controlled by many factors: machine failures, personnel issues, and quality control. A cannery also has to cope with the capriciousness of nature. Simply put, if it rains, you cannot harvest, and you cannot can. Likewise, in a non-growing season, plants do not grow and you cannot can. So what else can a cannery do?

Some factories can many different kinds of vegetables to shorten machine idle time. For example, one piece of equipment can can yams from August to December and potatoes from May to July. However, even with two varieties, there are still many idle months to deal with. Some factories keep a short production run for the year and use the off-season for equipment maintenance and repair. Other companies add a new development project to their cannery—dry packing.

Canning dry beans is both economical and convenient, because this product is not affected by season or weather. Dry packing has its own equipment lifespan and can work for long periods or be used on rainy days during the harvest season. Dry beans are easy to rehydrate. After soaking for eight hours, they can be treated as fresh vegetables. Dry packing is versatile, and its versatility is also a major Kosher concern at canning companies. Among the various canned dry beans are pork and beans, an American favorite, and beans with bacon.

When producing pork and beans, the usual practice is to put a small amount of pork in each can. Some companies use automatic meat storage or adjustment machines to automatically adjust the ratio of meat to beans; others use unplanned storage systems. Whatever the system, the amount of meat is so low that someone once posed this question to a canner: 'Since you put only a tiny piece of meat in pork and beans, what is the real purpose of the meat?' 'For the label,' he replied.

In fact, to avoid being regulated by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), a canning company must keep the amount of meat below 2%! In fact, in most cases the amount of this small piece of meat is negligible, because in the can the amount of meat is less than 1/60 of the can's total volume. This principle applies to the vast majority of cans between 15 ounces and 128 ounces. In a single small can, 10 ounces or less, the pork may be disregarded.

The question that arises: what difference does disregarding it make? That small piece of pork is always non-kosher. Who cares whether the pork is eaten or not? Clearly, what we care about is not the product itself, but maintaining the integrity of the equipment's kosher status. When a Kosher consumer picks up a can of corn without kosher certification, this is indeed the real problem. What is being produced in the factory? Were these cans retorted together with products that comply with dietary law? If the retort is disqualified because of the pork and beans, all vegetable products subsequently retorted will also be disqualified. When a canned vegetable obtains Kosher certification, an essential part is ensuring that the kosher status of the production equipment is not compromised.

In addition, with the popularity of ethnic-flavored meals, cans are also diversifying. A relatively new product in cans, called refried beans, is a Mexican favorite. Refried beans are non-kosher, a mixture of beans, pork and seasonings that takes a long time to cook and can. Other Southern and Southeastern favorites include shrimp and Creole turtle soup. These special items use the same batch retorts, filling lines and equipment as regular canned vegetables. Undoubtedly, companies that use ordinary equipment for special batch cooking raise real Kosher concerns about ordinary canned vegetables, which cannot be purchased unless these plants undergo thorough kosher handling between kosher and non-kosher products and are strictly monitored.

In addition, another large gray area appears in the private-label sector. Store brands, generic labels or food-service labels can be manufactured in many different facilities. Production can shift from one place to another, depending on the availability and cheapness of the product. There is no way to know whether the corn or green beans were manufactured in fully kosher equipment, or in a factory producing both kosher and non-kosher products using the same equipment. Therefore, the kosher mark on the can gives consumers the ability and confidence to separate the gray into black and white.

5. Best to buy

In the past it was thought that canned vegetables, such as corn or peas, were mostly produced in pure-vegetable, problem-free, kosher environments. In this case, the Kosher consumer had the right to assume that these vegetables without a kosher certification label could be purchased without special kosher certification, unless there was evidence to the contrary. All bean products are produced at companies specializing in dry bean products, where pork and beans or other meat products are also likely to be produced. Therefore, the following bean products must be purchased based on the kosher mark. These varieties include canned green beans, kidney beans, chickpeas, gizzard beans, great northern beans, black-eyed peas, purple-shell beans and navy beans.

However, with the increasing demand for optimized production and product diversification, the previous assumptions about corn and peas may backfire. In view of this fact, in an unprecedented internal kosher decision, all kinds of canned vegetables, including corn and peas, are now approved for use by all major kosher certification bodies only if they bear a reliable kosher certification mark. Of course, if it can be determined that a canned vegetable is produced in a factory that produces only kosher products, then that canned vegetable can be approved as kosher. However, such a determination is often difficult to make. The same rule of thumb also applies to canned tomato products, because these products share the same concerns as canned vegetables.

It is hoped that this article will enhance every Kosher consumer's understanding of this interesting industry and help renew appreciation for the uninterrupted research that kosher certification bodies do for kosher consumers.