Comments on: Tnuva – A Deeper Look at the Nation’s Largest Dairy

By: AR

AR — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:10:49 +0000

Wonderful article! Keep up the good work!

By: Chaim

Chaim — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:40:13 +0000

I neglected to mention in my previous comment that Tnuva has an extraordinary website dedicated just to the kashrut of its products (Hebrew only). They have detailed product listings as well as general information and full-fledged halachic essays.

http://www.kashrut-tnuva.co.il/

Enjoy!

By: Chaim

Chaim — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:03:49 +0000

Re non-mehadrin liquid milk, Tnuva prints the day of the week that the milk was filled (it’s right next to the expiry date, a letter from alef to vav). If the day of the filling is from Wednesday and on, you can be sure that it contains no milk that was milked on Shabbat, even if it’s not technically under mehadrin supervision.

By: PM

PM — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:32:56 +0000

An excellent article. A couple of points to add:
A consumer must be VERY careful to check all Tenuva products carefully as there can be mehadrin and non-mehadrin products that are nearly identical. I have seen in a specific store in Beitar non-mehadrin 1% milk, the only difference in the packaging was the mehadrin said chalav tenuva in green letters and the non-mehadrin in black. I spoke to the store manager and she acknowledged that she must have checked off the wrong product when she placed that weeks order.
Hard cheese has an additional issue that according to many Poskim the rennet must be physically added to the milk by a Jew. I heard from one of the heads of the OU that in the USA the price difference between Kosher and non-Kosher cheese is bigger then the gap for meat. So NO ONE should think cheese needs a lower level of supervision, a milchig establishment has an EVEN BIGGER temptation to cheat than a fleishig one.
I am not familiar with Tenuva’s non-mehadrin policy, but some hechsherim in EY were relying on a mechalel Shabbos supervising a non-Jewish worker milking the cows for chalav Yisroel. Many Poskim hold that this would still be chalav akum and one must be aware. While they may call their milk CY, it it not necessarily true according to all Poskim. Again, I don’t know if this is relevant to Tenuva.

By: Michoel

Michoel — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:55:28 +0000

Just for your own protection with the kashrut tour- take a body guard with you and try not to reveal the exact time of the tour.

By: Eliyahu

Eliyahu — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:09:09 +0000

I must point out that there is LOTS of commercial cheesemaking done without animal rennet. Quoting from Wikipedia’s article on rennet:

“GMO-Microbial rennet (see below) is used more often in industrial cheesemaking in North America today because it is less expensive than animal rennet, whereas cheese from Europe is more likely to be made from animal rennet due to tradition.”
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet

Also, rennet is primarily used in hard cheeses, while soft cheeses, including cottage cheese, cream cheese, farmer (pot) cheese, ricotta, and the like, are never made with rennet, anyway, and some cheeses like mozarella may or may not be. This also means that the majority of cheeses used in baking are not suspect of having been made by rennet, either.

Of course there are many issues surrounding the kashrut of cheeses, but just as the article notes, “nothing we eat is pure, that is to say there are enzymes, stabilizers, etc…” The assumption from fifty or even twenty years ago that rennet is treif is largely untrue - it’s just good business sense NOT to use animal rennet, because chemical rennet is cheaper, purer, and more readily available. Modern dairies that use animal rennet are more and more doing so out of perverse insistence on traditional recipes, since it is not economically sensible.

Nonetheless, despite my cavil about rennet, I appreciate your taking the time to write such an informative and helpful article. Thank you.