as your loss leaders,” Rachamim says. “Like Costco—they have hot dogs for $1.50, and [those] drive people in to buy other items.” Profit margins aren’t the only consideration. Another factor that plays a distinctive role in the kosher food eco- system is catering, which is far more common that in the mainstream restaurant industry. Catering is more profit- able than restaurant service, and it can provide steadier in- come through contracts (such as standing arrangements to cater meals for a JCC, school, or synagogue). This is helpful because margins tend to be higher on catering than restaurants. A caterer doesn’t just sell the food, which has thin margins: they sell services, like wait staff, and access to supplies — every glass, plate, and uten- sil is rented to the client at a much more advantageous markup than a steak. Restaurants, of course, provide ser- vices (waiting on patrons at their tables or packaging up their takeout orders) and require supplies, but, because guests aren’t charged for these separately, these costs get folded into the prices of menu items; there’s only so much mark-up that restaurateurs can add to those. In catering, each of these other items is invoiced separately, on top of the food: businesses charge for the hourly wage of each em- ployee and the rental of every piece of tableware, each of which can then be marked-up. OPENING AND MAINTAINING A KOSHER COMMERCIAL kitchen goes far beyond the ingredients and recipes you use. Kashrut isn’t an honour system: it requires operat- ing under the oversight of a certification organization — in Canada, that generally means COR (The Kashrut Council of Canada), MK (MK Kosher Global Certification Agen- cy, née Montreal Kosher), or KSR (Kashrut Supervision du Rabbinat). Kitchens must be regularly scrutinized by a mashgiach , an organizationally approved food inspector whose duties include lighting pilot flames (to make certain that an obser- vant Jew is involved in the cooking), ensuring that fridg- es are locked (to guarantee that no one can tamper with the items in it, intentionally or accidentally), examining raw ingredients (produce must be washed to ensure it is free of bugs), and signing off on the hechsherim (the certification labels) on packaged products — not all of which are rec- ognized by each certification body. Rates are different for every restaurant, but this supervision and approval costs thousands per year. It’s also a system that can be hostile to those perceived as outsiders. In 2014, Alex Levy opened ELNA Bistro in- S T A M P O F APPR O VAL
side a medical centre in Montreal’s Côte Saint- Luc. Levy is not observant, and his application for kosher certification was rejected by MK and KSR. He appealed KSR’s decision, explaining that there was nothing in their rules prohibiting this: KSR had previously approved three other restaurants with similar ownership. Once Levy was approved by KSR, the first inspector was strict but respectful, taking the time to explain why a particular can of pumpkin couldn’t be used even though it had US kosher certification. The business grew over the next few years until the supervisor was replaced by a less pleasant mashgiach , who came into Levy’s kitchen de- manding access to books, cameras, and fridges. “He didn’t even introduce himself as the new supervisor, and he was walking in my kitch- en,” says Levy. Asked why he was being treated with suspicion, the supervisor told him it was because Levy was not observant. On a second visit, things got more heated. “He points at the certificate and he snaps his fingers and says, I remove this. You’re a nobody. You will do as I say or you’re not going to have the certificate .” For its part, MK said it would approve Levy’s restaurant at triple the rate he was paying KSR. Eventually they settled for the same fee, but without any transparency about rates and pol- icies, the restaurateur was left feeling that the enforcement of kashrut was capricious. (MK did not respond to requests for comment.) Public health agencies, which also inspect restaurants, often hand out letter grades to inform the public about an establishment’s status, with timelines for fixing minor rule- breaking, which is a restaurant’s responsibil- ity. Kosher certifiers are more intervention- ist and generally work with restaurants on compliance, helping the operator meet their standards. “Most mistakes that happen are unintentional,” says Richard Rabkin, managing director of COR, “and can be corrected with better forethought and direction.” But when there are serious, intentional violations — for example, sneaking purchases of non-kosher meat — agencies can revoke a restaurant’s kosher certification. If a restaurant loses that, with it goes the trust of the kosher clientele. The only options then are transitioning to a being non-kosher restaurant or going out of business. There’s no coming back. If monitoring for all this sounds labour intensive, that’s because it is. Some Canadian organizations, including MK and KSR, assign
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