Kosher Shifts

Supply Chain Rifts

What happens when supply chains get disrupted? How about when ingredients need to be replaced due to skyrocketing costs? What about when certain items are banned by the government? These and other questions addressed by Rabbi Moshe Machuca - Rabbinic Field Representative for the OU, in this week's episode.

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R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Hello everyone and welcome back to Let's Talk Kashrus, presented by the Kashrus Awareness Project in conjunction with Torah Anytime. Today I am honored to be joined by Rabbi Moshe Machuca, rabbinic coordinator and rabbinic field representative with the OU in Southeast Asia. Thank you Rabbi Machuca for being here once again.

R’ Moshe Machuca: Thank you for having me.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So last time we spoke, we spoke about your fascinating entry into the field of kashrus and traveling and all the challenges that accompany that experience. Today I'd like to hear from you briefly about innovations and updates in kashrus. You're there on the ground, you go from company to company. I hear this all the time from Rabbonim Mashgichim, from Mashgichim, from Rabbonim Machshirim, that the field of kashrus as much as any field is constantly changing. Things are always being updated, there are new innovations. So what could you tell us from your experience in the field? You travel overseas, you go to many different countries. What has changed and what updates could you give us from on the ground?

R’ Moshe Machuca: Basically, things that started changing dramatically after COVID or during COVID. All of the supply chain got disrupted. Nobody could travel, and then freight when, like for example, from Asia to the United States, a freight was for between 3,800 to 5/6,000 dollars, it went all the way to 32,000. And that necessity creates innovation. So everybody started trying to find local sources and and scouring and trying to develop other ways, which is, which has become an an enormous headache for kashrus professionals. Nowadays you have people that had, for example, in the dairy business, New Zealand supplies most of the powder milk to most of the countries and some American companies too, but because of that, then they started looking into the local governments, and then we had to spend an unbelievable amount of time trying to research if we could even accept those type of milks and to monitor that whatever we say is on the Schedule A was there. So we had to become a...

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Well just for for our viewers, what does Schedule A mean in kashrus terms?

R’ Moshe Machuca: The Schedule A is the list of ingredients that are that have been approved and that by the contractual agreement between the kashrus agency and the company, they are not allowed to change without prior authorization from the kashrus agency. And the Schedule B is a list of products. So once they that start happening, it start happening with milk, it start happening with glycerin.

I think you touched glycerin briefly with Rabbi Juravel. Glycerin is becoming a major problem because now you have these trend that of use cooking oil. So you have countries like Asia where the main countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, where most of the countries in Asia where the main dish is not beef or poultry, but seafood. But when I say seafood, it's not fish, it's octopus and shrimps and krills and and anguilas and horseshoe crabs and you name it. Fried, steamed, barbecued, in whichever way you want. So they go, they start scouring all these oils from all the restaurants and then in that in that used cooking oil, there's still a mashehu of things that can be used. So they goes, they take it in, they put it into a very powerful piece of equipment that is called a a cracker and it breaks down that cooked oil and then you can recover some propylene glycol and you can get some glycerin. But that glycerin is treif.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Animal derived?

R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah, animal derived and treif derived, because they eat whales, they eat swordfish, they eat sharks, they eat all that stuff. So all that fat ends up being collected and now reprocessed. And the problem is, is that once you have the glycerin and you put it on the microscope, you have no way of saying this glycerin came from here or that glycerin came from here.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Really?

R’ Moshe Machuca: No. Glycerin is glycerin, and that's what it is. So, and everybody start becoming more innovative. Like for example, right now, there is a situation where cocoa, there was a being a drought or the cocoa, either for drought or because of excessive rain, the production, the yield, uh... is reduced, so now most of the cocoa butter, which is what is used to make white chocolate, now you have to use a cocoa butter substitutes because the price of cocoa butter is too expensive.

And cocoa powder, now there are companies experimenting with carobs. Carobs have a cocoa-like taste profile. So now they're they started with a 5% injection. I tried it because they gave me we had to approve the carobs for for the R&Ds.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What's the kashrus concerns would there be with the carob?

R’ Moshe Machuca: Well, there's no kashrus concern per se, but we were very worried because you're putting in a new element. So the emulsifiers that you keep to that you use to keep everything together, they might change and because they might not work.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Got it.

R’ Moshe Machuca: So that we were very worried about that. And then once they started doing R&Ds and the things that were working worked, so the taste if you're a chocolate connoisseur, you you're gonna

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: You'll pick up on it?

R’ Moshe Machuca: you'll pick up on it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Very interesting. So to clarify, so you weren't so concerned about the carob itself, but about the emulsifier being used if it's not effective anymore now that you're introducing a new element into the product, they may change it. Yes. So you have to be on top of that.

R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah, we have to be on top of it. And thank G-d, the emulsifiers that were being used, it is they worked. They held everything together, but we were worried about that. That's interesting. Carob is just a fruit, you just dry it and grind it and use it 5% into a chocolate compound.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Would you say now some years later after COVID that things have calmed down or is it still that freight and shipping is so much more expensive than it was pre-COVID and and that's affecting the-

R’ Moshe Machuca: It has come down but not to pre-COVID levels. Not to pre-COVID levels. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. That those days are gone.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So are people still looking for more domestic options as opposed to international?

R’ Moshe Machuca: Yes, everybody yes, because and now you have a panic, sort of a panic with tariffs and and the people don't want to don't want to pay more. So they start doing a lot of things. He said right now, I think here there's a situation where we're seeing again, tallow glycerin that we haven't had in a in a while.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Tallow glycerin, that's what it's called? And that's made from?

R’ Moshe Machuca: From cow. Tallow is a is cow fat. Lard is pig fat. But but again, you have a fat, you can get glycerin. So so and now so you have an exodus of people getting out of China to places more less, let's say confrontational with the United States with the current situation in the United States. So they have more stability. But at the same time now, we have a we have a new director of the health department that is RFK? RFK? Yeah. that is banning Certain, right? He's banning certain items.

So so now, for example, I am in the OU with the committee that is looking into new ingredients. Blue is going to be gone the next the next Right,

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: the colorings that he wants to ban because they're not healthy, right?

R’ Moshe Machuca: Yeah. So color blue now is going to be substitute the suitable substitutes are a blue flower, I think it's called Gardenia, if I remember. I don't quote me on that, but I think that's what it is, that is very abundant in Indonesia.

So they had to boil it, evaporate, and then spray dry and make it into a usable color. Or there is a microbe that is like a it's an unicell not microbe, I would say it fungi because it's it's like a spirulina. You know what you know what that is?

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, I don't know what that is.

R’ Moshe Machuca: Spirulina is a single cell algae. Some people call it algae, but correctly it should be a fungi. So, so they they get that, they grow it and they're they made these little tiny green pills that are supposed to be very healthy and very beneficial for you. So there is a one like that that it is blue, but it is found, like have you seen those pictures in in Old Faithful in in Yellowstone that when you see the hot springs, you see like a blue

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah, the coloring, yeah.

R’ Moshe Machuca: So that color is produced by that little unicell entity, and so now there's a French company that it is going to be doing that. So the one that is going to become a big problem is are the reds, because as you know, there's no more beautiful red than carmine. Right, no more carmine. Yeah, and carmine, no, I don't know if that one is banned because what they're banning are chemical. But the red 40 and some other type of red, so but the most beautiful red is carmine that it is not kosher.

So now we're going to have to be really on top of colorings, and I already have four of my companies that use colors. They say that, what are you guys doing with colors? You need to let me know immediately once you decide where can we buy? because I know it is a year and a half away, but a year and a half away is a nap away. Right. Yeah, it's so, so there are a lot of things that are that are changing and that are becoming challenges and that that all the kashrus organizations have to dedicate a lot of manpower and resources to keep up.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Yeah, and I know that there's a lot of collaboration between kashrus agencies, especially under the umbrella of AKO. Yes. Yes, to bring to bring together all the information. Let's say someone like you, you have firsthand information in Southeast Asia and someone else has information in a different region and it's really a kiddush shem shomayim how people bring it together for the benefit of Klal Yisrael to be on the cutting edge of kashrus.

R’ Moshe Machuca: The AKO organization is a Godsend to the, to the world because it’s the entity by which everybody gets sort of on the same page. Right, right. It's really wonderful.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Rabbi Machuca, thank you for being here. Thank you for providing these few updates. I'm sure there's more, but im yirtzeh Hashem we'll be able to speak to you again in the future.

R’ Moshe Machuca: Okay, thank you.