The single greatest increased cost to a kosher restaura- teur is the requirement of employing a mashgiach , which becomes very pricy if that person only oversees kashrut and does not perform any other kitchen labour. “I’ve seen some [kitchens] where the only function and job for the mashgi- ach is the kosher supervision,” Klein says. “They literally will not lift a finger and do anything else, where they technically could. And in those cases, they’re a real financial strain on those businesses.” This is, to be clear, not due to religious obligations. “There are plenty of other mashgichim who are very hands-on and are working as if they’re a manager or a cook,” explains Klein. “They’re serving a dual purpose in the restaurant so they’re not bloating the payroll.” This, ob- viously, is a better situation for the restaurateur, but still an added cost: Klein says that someone in this role “is still go- ing to cost more than a typical restaurant worker.” In the United States, smaller certification agencies like DC Kosher and Lighthouse Kosher are working to lower this financial barrier. Focused primarily on vegetarian and vegan restaurants whose ingredients require less oversight, DC Kosher provides an easier avenue for businesses that aren’t aimed at a kosher audience but could easily reach them without too much additional effort. “That’s a quali- ty of food that I want to model for our community,” says
the restaurant’s mashgiach . COR allows restau- rateurs to select their own working mashgiach (who works directly in the kitchen and COR must then approve), with additional oversight provided by what’s a called a “route mashgiach ” — a COR mashgiach who has several restau- rants, generally clustered close together, which they simultaneously oversee—who visits mul- tiple times a day. They, in turn, report to a se- nior mashgiach in the head office. In 2016, COR launched a mashgiach training course that includes food safety and knife handling educa- tion. That’s a lot of labour and bureaucracy that the restaurateur is paying for through fees. A contemporary tech upgrade to these long-established practices: installing camer- as in the kitchen. This allows kosher agencies to both bring down their own labour costs as well as collect documentation in case of infrac- tions. Like all security measures, the cameras are a double-edged sword. Employees don’t like it. But it helps ensure a kitchen’s kosher status and may be used to settle a dispute with a mash- giach, which is in a restaurant’s favour.
5785 ץִיַק 37 ַקִיץ
Made with FlippingBook Digital Proposal Creator