Why don't women w cooking hobby businesses need supervision?

keym

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 1:30 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

Do you have a special kitchen? The people I know who have food businesses all rent space in commercial kitchens, that is why I asked.

I wonder if this is state specific.
The woman I know who has a cake decorating/miniature business created a kitchen in her garage. Regular ovens but industrial size mixers, fridge and freezer.
The mashgiach has the key and has to open up and check before she's allowed in to start the day, closed circuit video that he reviews, he is tge one that opens or unseals every case of flour or tub of shortening, and no one but approved employees allowed in the kitchen ever.
But she has a legal business.
So......

RBPetra

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 1:48 pm

We don't buy from people who don't have hashgacha. Doesn't matter if I personally know and trust them. Even if I'll eat by them for Shabbos. The moment money is involved, people have a vested interest in cutting corners. Just like I wouldn't eat at a restaurant without hashgacha, even if I knew it was run by a frum Jew

amother

Silver

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 2:49 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I have a question about various women in our community who have basically "hobby businesses" selling food that they're cooking out of their kitchen. For example, one woman sells challahs and side-dishes / dips for Shabbat. Another sells cheesecakes for Shavuot and various other baked goods throughout the year. They're obviously doing this mostly as a hobby and for fun, and while they may be making some sort of money from it I can't imagine they're making much if any when you consider their time and all the hidden costs.

None of these women have a mashgiach in their personal kitchen. Everyone knows them to be frum women who know the laws of kashrut, and everyone (including me) buys and eats their stuff without question. Our rebbitzen even buys the cheesecake lady's cheesecakes and serves them at the Shavuot kiddush.

My question is: WHY is no supervision/mashgiach required for this sort of cooking hobby business?

I'm just curious to know why. I always thought the purpose of supervision for a restaurant was: 1) you might not personally know the owner in order to trust their kashrut, and 2) even if you know the owner, there's a financial incentive for them to cut corners if they're running a business. Is that correct? If that's right, why is no supervision required for a "hobby business" run out of a woman's kitchen? Do we figure she's not getting rich off it so there's not that same financial incentive to cut corners on kashrut as a restaurant would have?

I do not buy from ANY home business that does not have a reputable hashgacha.
I have no idea where this fad started from but definitely a more recent thing that is really not ok.

amother

Apricot

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 8:06 pm

I did not read the whole thread.

Many years ago, I started baking and selling items here and there, my husband wanted it on the up and up and his Rav very clearly said you can trust someone to eat in their house, but the minute it's a business, they need a hashgacha as people are human. (Monsey meat story as a bad example).

We called a kashrut agency and they said in order to be done at home, we'd need the entire prep area locked from the house, household members can't freely go into the area and the mashgiach would need a key and access 24/7 if they decided to check in.

amother

NeonBlue

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 9:09 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

They most definitely do need a hashgacha and people who are careful with their kashrus should nit buy from them without a hashgacha. This isn’t the same as when you eat a meal at someone’s house. Doing it on a grander scale for business does require hashgacha.

amother

NeonBlue

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 9:24 pm

amother [ Bluebell ] wrote:

Op, what do you mean by "need" supervision?

If people are buying from her because they trust her, she doesn't need anything.

If she wants to grow her business beyond her immediate acquaintances, then she'll "need" a way to prove to other people that she's keeping kashrus at a certain level, and will need to get a certificate of supervision.

As a consumer, halacha requires me to eat kosher food but there aren't laws (to my knowledge) regarding supervision. That only comes into play when I don't personally know or trust the standards of the person making the food.

Wrong.

amother

NeonBlue

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 9:25 pm

little neshamala wrote:

Do people require a hechsher when they get a chessed meal voluntarily cooked by someone in their community? What about all the times people eat out by other families for shabbos meals? Or let their kids eat birthday cake etc by a class bday party in someone elses home?

The reality is that quite often people are making the decision about whether or not they trust someone else's kashrus standards, and go ahead with it, so why would a home business be any different?

Because a business is very different than eating a meal at a persons house. According to your logic a restaurant shouldn’t either need a hashgacha because, hey I know the guy, he davens in my shul, he’s frum, I eat at his house, why can’t I also eat at his restaurant?

amother

NeonBlue

Sun, Jan 23 2022, 10:45 pm

amother [ Latte ] wrote:

There was a session at the Agudah convention from Rabbi Fishbane of the CRC describing how an event in a shul in Lakewood recently served treif fish sushi to the guests and it’s not at all isolated. Party planners are the new Wild West. They often source from private individuals with dubious halacha standards and the public has no clue.

He says basically in the last few years we have all started doing the equivalent of eating in restaurants with no hechsher. Really eye opening and frightening.

https://agudah.org/watch-aguda.....oday/

Very enlightening. Thank you. Everyone should listen.

amother

Dustypink

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 3:56 am

amother [ Oak ] wrote:

Hechsherim the way we have them today, didn't exist 200 years ago and all the way into the past. This bureaucratic thing of putting a stamp and a certificate on everything and having a multitude of different hechsherim is relatively new. If you look at books about halacha from the 19th century, there is no mention of organized hechsherim. Which hechsher did the baker in the shtetl have? What do you think our ancestors all did? They trusted whom they knew one could trust to keep kosher.
Industrialization and commercialization of food production made the "invention" of hechsherim necessary on the industrial/commercial/restaurant level. But introducing that concept to the friends & neighbors level is a new idea, and not a good one, in my opinion.

Once, kashrut separated frum Jews from secular Jews and from gentiles.
Now, does it really have to be used to separate frum Jews from each other? Is that its purpose? That every family sits alone at home and eats pre-packaged and stamped food only?

Yes and no. There are a lot of innovations in kashrus that are a response to commercially prepared food, and unfortunately some innovations that seem designed to make money for certain industries.

But in this case, the rule not to buy prepared food from someone without supervision is a takana of the Vaad Arba Haaratzot. I don't know when it was made, but the Vaad was active from the 16th century to 1784.

I do think people have gone overboard, so that kashrus becomes divisive. For example, the whole point of shalach manos is to build community by sharing food. It's understood that you eat your neighbor's cooking.

amother

Stoneblue

Mon, Jan 24 2022, 8:45 am

I for sure don't eat any sold food without a hechsher. And no, I don't trust all my frum neighbors. I used to think of they were frum so I can just eat there until I realized that many don't know halacha and others don't hold the same standards as me. For example, I hold that I need to kasher / self clean my oven between meat and milk. My neighbor puts any covered dairy in a meat empty oven. Because I don't hold that's ok, I won't eat from her kitchen, but I didn't know this right when I met her. I didn't know until more than a year later. Another neighbor offered me triangle K d chips after the meal on Shabbos. So I don't eat by anyone now and prefer to invite people to my house. If I can't keep up my standards when I'm away, they aren't really standards.