Private Labels

Kashrus Fables

A behind the scenes look into the massive industry of private labels and how it affects the kosher consumer. Also, highlighting the power of the consumer in regard to online buying, Rabbi Dov Chastain - Kashrus Administrator at the KOF-K, has some tips what you should do if something you bought online doesn't have the symbol that was advertised in the online pictures.

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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 privileged to be joined by Rabbi Dov Chastain, director of private labels and an account executive at the KOF-K. Thank you Rabbi Chastain for joining here. All the way from Rochester, New York, where you live.

R’ Dov Chastain: Yes. Pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So it's great to have you here in the Let's Talk Kashrus studios to discuss your expertise, especially what you do on a day-to-day basis, which is private labels.

Now for the layman out there who may not know, they don't know what that means. Could you just give us a little summary, what does private label mean in the world of kashrus?

R’ Dov Chastain: The shprach of private labels, I love to tell the oilam. That's one of the things I really wanted to talk about because a lot of people, they think that the products that they're buying on the shelves are coming from factories and you have this brand, they think there's, I don't know, Kroger factories all over the country. One of the Kroger factories is making pickles. One of the Kroger factories is making ice cream, but Kroger is an example of a private label, meaning you have a store brand that owns a brand name or several brand names, but they are having their items produced across the country in different production facilities. So private labels refers to companies that don't actually have or usually don't have their own production facilities, but they have their items outsourced to companies that are going to make them for them. A lot of those are store brands, but then there's also people who have a dream and chase a dream. They want to create their own product.

They have their own niche they want to, they want to fill, or they have their own idea that they want to send out to the oilam and they create a brand name, and then they contract with different companies to be able to produce it. So for example, you used the, you used the example, let's say a pickle factory. Someone may own a pickle factory, and that factory could be making pickles for several different brands. Several different brands, very big brands.

Maybe even kosher brands. Probably a lot of kosher brands. They're going to have their in-house brand, which might be the same name as their company, it also might not be. Like an example, there's a company called Walmart.

Their brand's not called Walmart, it's called Great Value. Right. So you have brand names or several names it could be. And they're also going to be making for a lot of different other private label companies that want them to make their product.

They may have a couple little specifications for their private label product, but just going into my own head for the places that I'm account executive for, there's several of my companies that have over a dozen, a few of my companies even probably 50 private labels that they're making for. In addition to their own brand names. They might have up to 10 of their own brand names, but they also are making could be 50 private labels. I'm sure there's more also.

I'm just in my own companies, I'm thinking of ones that have 50 private labels that they're making for. I'm thinking of a Maraschino cherry company actually that has, one of the things I do when I actually visit the facility is I go into the private label room and I spend an hour just looking through the labels to make sure that all the ones that are bearing the KOF-K are on our list and that we have knowledge of it and knowledge of all the varieties that we're making for that private label. So it's it's definitely something that we need to keep on track of and on top of in hashgacha. It's an important thing.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: So what are some of the pitfalls or challenges that come along with the private label industry and just the idea of one company making the same product for multiple labels?

R’ Dov Chastain: I would say the biggest pitfall and the thing that needs the most maintenance is that when we're giving hashgacha to a company, so we have a relationship with the company, we visit the company. When we're dealing with private labels, we do sign private label agreements, but we don't have as direct a relationship with them. That's one of the main things that I do is I am actually in touch with private labels, maintain a relationship, maintain knowledge of where they're running their products because they might decide one day, I don't want to run my product here anymore. So if I don't have any relationship with them, here they are, they have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth in private labels that have a KOF-K on the label.

They decide they want to go somewhere new. They don't want to throw away those labels. If we don't have a relationship with them, those labels could end up in a new facility that we don't know about. And within the kashrus industry, sometimes that does happen.

We rely on our RFRs a lot, our Rabbinic Field Representatives to find those things. A lot of other agencies work with each other. The first time that that this idea even came onto my radar was when I found some labels from another national hashgacha in my factory that I didn't know about. I called them, they didn't know about it.

So I gave them that information, they were able to work it out. And frankly, it comes to us from consumers also. One of the main things I do is maintain relationships so that we have as much knowledge as we can possibly have, but there are definitely times where we receive consumer inquiries from somebody that found something on Amazon that that had a KOF-K. Now sometimes that KOF-K or whatever symbol it is, is not actually on the item.

It's just on the Amazon product image list of things that they have as certifications. Shouldn't trust that, because a lot of times they'll just throw something on. I've seen plenty of times things from China that have absolutely no shaychus to us that have the KOF-K in the product images. One of the things that I do in that type of scenario is I do an infringement report with Amazon.

They're actually really responsive to those. Is that right? Interesting. Yeah, I don't speak to an individual at Amazon very often, but if you put in an infringement report, and anybody who wants to know how to do one of those, I'm happy to teach them. I've actually taught other agencies how to do this.

But they'll respond. They'll respond pretty quickly. Very interesting. And they'll remove the, they'll often times remove the entire item from Amazon.

At the very least, they'll remove the images that have the, the hechsher. So that happens a lot also. You'll have somebody that calls into the KOF-K and says, I bought this thing on Amazon. It came, you know, there was a KOF-K in the product images, there's no KOF-K on the on the package.

Don't eat that. Right? That's something you wouldn't want to eat. And that's the type of scenario where I would then follow up. And usually when I put in an Amazon infringement report, the company that posted that Amazon product will get back to me very quickly because for every moment that that post is down, they're losing money.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Right. So they get back to me pretty quick. So getting back to the private label, what do you do practically to prevent the misuse of of labels? Like you said, if a company's switching factories or something of that sort and now they have an abundance of labels that have your kashrus symbol on it and may not be continuing to be supervised by the KOF-K, what exactly do you do?

R’ Dov Chastain: Sure. So I'll tell you, we have an amazing system called iKosher that the KOF-K developed.

Rabbi Michael Brukman was really the architect that built it and Rabbi Lazar Weisz is very involved with maintaining it. It's amazing. I have a report that I run every day that tells me anytime a private label has been activated in a company so that I know to reach out. Anytime one's in process and how long it's been in process for, if something's dragging out, maybe they're not going to produce at this company.

I should call them, find out. And anytime one is marked as defunct, which is really the most important. If I see that a private label has now been marked as defunct, that means it's not supposed to be made in our company anymore. So if it's not supposed to be made in our company anymore, what happened? Did they go out of business? Are they moving? If they're moving, do they want hashgacha? If they're not going to be under hashgacha, they have to know they need to destroy the labels.

So when something's marked as defunct, that's the first time I get on the phone and just make sure that they know what they need to do. Now, their private label agreement tells them that they can't manufacture those products anywhere else without our knowledge of it. So they really sign that, but who knows how long ago they signed that. It's not the same as a company which has an annual renewal because a lot of times the private labels aren't paying anything.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And I imagine it's fine print in a in a long contract that they may not even remember, right?

R’ Dov Chastain: It's in a pretty long contract, although the PLA is not as long as a regular contract. It's not that long, but usually with them, the bigger idea is they haven't read it in a while. Because even though we renew our companies every year and there's an annual fee, a lot of private labels aren't paying anything. They're coming along for the ride of the company that's paying for hashgacha.

Sometimes private labels are, especially if you have a private label, let's say—

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: That's interesting. You mean when they come along for the ride, meaning you're really supervising the factory, not the various individual labels that are being produced in that factory. So you may not even have a relationship at all with the company that's coming in and kind of like sub-producing in that factory?

R’ Dov Chastain: They have to sign a private label agreement. No one can run a KOF-K without signing a private label agreement.

Okay. So we do have a signed contract, we do have some contact. My job is to make sure there's more than just some contact, because they are not subject to renewing a contract every year, unless there are examples, and this is really something that has become more prevalent in the last year because I've been more in touch with private labels, really the last two years. And that is, let's say I do find a private label that's defunct.

They're leaving our company, they're moving somewhere else. I call them, I tell them, you know, you're going to have to destroy those labels. And they say, Rabbi, that's... $200,000.

And I say, yeah, I know. So what do you want to do? Well, can you help us find somewhere that's kosher? Sure. Let's say we find somewhere that produces what they produce. And then you'll continue to supervise.

Yes, now. That's usually the easiest eitzah I imagine. That's the easiest eitzah, the easiest easiest is if they move somewhere and it's under another hashgacha like the OU or something like that, and then we don't have to charge them for the entire hashgacha on the facility as much as we'll charge them a nominal fee and ask the OU or whoever else it is to take over the hashgacha. Yeah.

That's interesting. But the label will continue saying KOF-K as long as they want it. Eventually a lot of times in those scenarios, they'll switch over to the hashgacha that's in the building. Uh-huh.

But until they run out of labels, they are going to have to pay a fee to the KOF-K. And we also are going to keep an eye on it to make sure somebody's looking at it for us and make sure that the facility is under good hashgacha. Got it. Got it.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: What other interesting details could you share about the private label industry?

R’ Dov Chastain: Sure. A couple other things I would want people to be aware of. I want to swing back to just the idea of what consumers can do. When it comes to private labels, like we said, you know, they could be produced in any number of companies and they don't own their facility.

If you see something, I'll give you an example that just pops into my mind for KOF-K things. If you see like a random meat product with a KOF-K on it, you should probably think twice about that because we don't certify much of any meat. So if you see something that you don't know, that you don't know the company, That's a red flag. That's a red flag right away.

That's true for OU also, but if you see something that just doesn't make a lot of sense, or you see a posting where there's a KOF-K or an OU or whatever other symbol in the product images, but it's not on the actual label, that should be a red flag. If you ever order on Amazon something and it comes and it doesn't have a KOF-K on it and then the images it did, that should be a red flag. These are all things within the private label industry, you shouldn't just buy that and eat that. A lot of the questions that I get coming into the KOF-K revolve around that type of thing.

I've bought something on Amazon, I've bought something on Walmart. If something does not make sense or add up, then you should definitely reach out to the agency and put that item on a quality control hold on your shelf, right? KQH. That's how we say it in kashrus. Put it on a Kashrus Quality Hold and wait until you hear something about it because that plays into this issue of of private labels being something that we need to look out for.

Very interesting. And the agencies are are really starting to work on this. I know the OK has somebody that's just in charge of private labels now. That's something that the KOF-K  has put a lot of time and energy into.

And it's something that I think the Olam HaKashrus is coming around to is one of the next big issues to tackle because it definitely is something that needs that maintenance to make sure that we know. And it can't just be reactive. It's got to be proactive so that we have some form of relationship with those private labels and uh and can reach out to them and make sure that we know where our symbols are being used.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Have you had any scenario where you had to take legal action, you know, to really

R’ Dov Chastain: Absolutely.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: Give us an example of enforcing kashrus authenticity and making sure that uh companies are not taking advantage.

R’ Dov Chastain: We had a private label that made crackers. And this private label um was being produced in one of our facilities and there was a kashrus alert that went out about this, um so people might put it together. But um they had been in touch with us about producing in another country.

And then all of a sudden the line went blank. We didn't hear anything more from them. Turns out the guy who was talking to us got fired. But we didn't know that.

And his supervisor thought that he had gotten the okay to run this product in this other country. And it came to our attention probably about six months later that they had done that because it was uh it was found by a mashgiach, which again, this is where kashrus agencies help each other out. And uh we got on in touch with them right away. We sent um a rabbinic field representative to the facility.

It came out that it was it was not something we felt we could stand behind. Probably kosher, but not something we felt we could stand behind. And we not only issued a kashrus alert, but we had them make a recall on all of those products. And there were products that had gone out to market, and we had them send at their own expense, um representatives to sticker over every single KOF-K that was out on the shelves.

So we took achrayus and we went after it. We did a kashrus alert and we recalled those products. So that and that is an example that happened with a private label. That was a private label company that did that.

And we were on top of it right away and I would say the response from the Kof-K was incredibly swift and professional. Wow. But that's an example of where the line went dark for a second and this is what happens when the line can go dark. If you don't have communication with these people, you don't really know where these things are going to end up.

So that was a an example where we had to track it down, figure out exactly what happened there, figure out if we could stand behind it, and b'dieved we could have, but we don't like to be b'dieved at the Kof-K. Right. We're pretty l'chatchila.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: No, that's great.

And I love what you said before. I think it's so instructive for our viewers and listeners who already know that over here at Kashrus Awareness, Let's Talk Kashrus, we're all about education and giving people tools. I think you gave us a great, an instructive tool, which is that if something doesn't seem right, even if you see the symbol on the item, put it on hold. If something doesn't seem right, put it on hold.

Find out, hold off a day, make a phone call, send an email. I know that the Kof-K is very responsive to consumers, as is many of the large organizations. And I think that alone is an important lesson to be learnt and to apply. So we appreciate that.

R’ Dov Chastain: Absolutely, my pleasure.

R’ Yitzchok Hisiger: And thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us this insight into the world of private labels. Continued hatzlacha in your avodas hakodesh.