Chaptzem Blog!      

Is anything wrong with Hebrew National?

 

This is outrageous. Especially in light of the decrease in cost of poultry. Last week I saw traif whole chickens for sale at $1.29lb and chicken legs for $.39 lb.
I think that if Perdue should get into the kosher meat business, its commin stock would soar. Kashruth has become a license to gouge and steal. Not to worry Perdue, frum are loathe to complain about price gouging.

 

K.J. chicken in Kiryas Joel in Monroe N.Y. is slaughtering 18,000 chickens every day and it does not have enough for the Satmar people all over the U.S.
K.J. is known to have one of the best hashgachas in the U.S.

 

On an average Sunday, Spalter said, the store would get 250 cases of meat. On a recent Sunday, the store received just 26 and a promise
DOES THAT MEAN THAT THE ORDER HAD TRAVELED ON SHABBOS??? NO WONDER THEY HAVE SO MUCH TZORES!!! are we allowed to use the meat in that case?

 

This is an old story of trucks delivering on Sunday, having driven from Iowa.

Asking the truck driver yields confusing denials.

But when you ask, maisiach lifee tumoi, as one worker to another, asking about the road conditions during the storm Friday night on the way down from Ioway, you hear that he left Postville on Friday, and drove on Shabbos.

 

How is it possible unkosher meat is 1/3 to 1/4 the price. Where are these millions of dollars going too? even halal private meat is just a little more than unkosher meat (purdue-tyson)- we (kosher jews) are getting ripped off by the hashgachas and the companies. I try to convince other family members to eat kosher but its hard when I cant explain or understand myself why kosher is 4X the price!! Dont get me started on PAssover-I guess they learned from the Yeshivahs how to Gouge us-(chanacuh gelt for teachers, Dinners, sending home tzedakah boxes that must be filled, Candy ($6 box), Plant sales, Photos,Uniforms that can only be purchased at a close member of the yeshivah,Im ready to give it all up- --ITS ALL A SCAM!!

 

Traveled on SHABBAS:

ARE YOU RETARDED? are you gonna ask tropicana not to squeeze your oj on shabbas? or maybe well make a new hashgachah "SHOMER SHABBAS FREE" like chalov israel, pas israel, bishul and the other 50 ones!!

 

Not the same. If a goyishe company is mechallel Shabbos for their own benefit, their products are mutar. No problem.

Learn hilchos Amira L'Akum

Anything a non-Jew does for a Jew specifically is problematic.

If you ask a non-Jew to turn your lights on for you, and he/she does, you must leave the room. You are not allowed to benefit from that light.

The same goes for the non-Jew who turns the light on FOR YOU without your asking.

(yes, there is a weak heter for tzibur to call in a goy to turn lights on in a shul, l'tzorech tzibur only, but even then, you must hint around and not tell them directly.)

The same goes for giving your car to a mechanic or ask a worker to do work on your home.

If you pay him for the entire job, and he can do it anytime, AND THERE IS TIME TO COMPLETE THE JOB WITHOUT WORKING ON SHABBOS, it is mutar under certain circumstances, except where there is a maaras ayin problem.

But, if you pay the worker to do a job which takes 30 hours on Friday Afternoon, and you tell him you must have it completed by Saturday night, or Sunday morning, so that there is no way he can complete the job and not work on Shabbos, that is forbidden.

Now, when you load a refrigerated truck with meat on Friday in IOWA, and give the driver a schedule calling for a FLORIDA delivery on Sunday, there is no way that driver can do the job without driving on Shabbos.

Now, let's even say they have a crazy work-around, where they contract with an outside company to deliver stuff, and they choose what day they give it to the driver, that still is a problem, because the trucks are clearly marked with Aaron's Rubashkin logos and advertizing.

Just like in the Shulchan Aruch it says that the builder who is working on your home on HIS time in the country, may work on Shabbos, while the same owner and builder may not do it if the home is in town. WHY? Because of maaras ayin.

What more maaras ayin could there be than to see the Rubashkin trucks driving down the road with their full paint jobs advertising that they are Rubashkin trucks.

Besides they don't use intermediaries as far as I know. The few drivers I met when working as a mashgiach told me they picked up at AGRI in Postville, and drove to Florida directly. On Shabbos.

Whereas the drivers from other shecht houses left their northern locations on Sunday or Monday, never leaving on Friday.

When I complained one time about ALLE's delivery problems, the driver complained back to me, "I can't help it. They have a lot of rules. The truck must be parked on Saturday. This means we need to be back up North by Friday. The trucks sit empty until Sunday or Monday. They are then loaded, and sent out on a round trip which brings the trucks back by Friday. Often we get back Thursday morning, and can't leave again until Sunday or Monday. This is a lot of down time."

So, obviously, some other companies work around it, and do not deliver or drive on Shabbos at all.

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HIGH PRICES:

Also, regarding the cost factor, here are some of the reasons our kosher meat is so much more expensive:

1) The delivery costs as discussed above.

2) The shechting process is MUCH more expensive than the other ways to kill. Besides salaries for shochtim and mashgichim, the entire process is MUCH slower

3) The bedikas and and other processes slow the production line down. Pre-shechting bedikas to make sure the cow is not a DA cow and other prior injuries which render the animal treife, and to check for ossur blood lines.

4) Melicha!!! The entire salting operation. Wash, Salt, Wash Again. This is a VERY difficult procedure, an easy place to mess up and make the food ossur. It must be done with care.

5) Gid Hanashe! The other non-kosher meat packers simply kill and butcher the entire animal, we have to sell our hind quarters to non-kosher meat packers. That is some of the most expensive, most profitable meat (sirloin steaks, real filet mignon, etc.) and we have to wholesale it off losing that potential profit.

6) Salaries: Mashgichim at every level of production, shechita, bedika, melicha, butchering, and packaging.

7) Marking and putting kashrus seals on the meat and packaging, to protect the kashrus of the meat.

8) TREIFOS ... The better the kashrus, the more cows are found to be treif! First of all, if you have a good, really kosher place to work, the shochtim are honest and will tell you when they messed up and pressed on the knife the wrong way, even if the mashgiach did not see. This means many more treifos than in a sloppy shecht house, where they keep tabs on number of treifos, making the shochtim nervous to be honest. So, if you want really kosher meat, you need to have a plant where the shochet is not penalized in any way for a bad day.
So, we get treifos from the shechting.
We also get treifos from inspection. We find adhesions or scars which may render the animal treif. These animals must be carted away, slowing or stopping the assembly lines, which is costly, and sold at a loss to a non-kosher company.

I am always shocked that Kosher meat is as cheap as it is! When I do not see it as expensive as I think it should be, I begin to worry. In fact, some rabbonim keep a little notebook, keeping track of percentage of treifos. And if a certain plant has "too good a record" meaning that they do not have as many treifos as other plants, they get nervous.....

Bottom line, if you want REALLY KOSHER meat, without shortcuts, you need to expect to pay significantly more. Not just an extra dollar a pound. Remember, it is not just the money to the hashgacha agency. That is relatively minor in the scheme of things.

 

KJ is not only supplying chickes to Satmar Chassidim. The Chabad house I daven at uses only KJ chickens. They dropped Rubashkin over a year ago.
The shaliach said, I don't care about the politics stuff. Satmar sechita is tops, and there are nothing but questions up in Postville.

 

It depends on who the driver works for. if he works directly for a jewish company, he cannot drive on Shabbos. If he is an independent contractor he can do whatever he wants, as long as he is not specifically told to drive in Shabbos.
As far as the meat, the boxes are double-sealed, or else it would not be allowed to have a non-Jew transport them at all.

 

Even if the driver is an independent contractor, he must not be told a delivery time which forces him to drive on Shabbos. He must be able to do the entire job without working on Shabbos for it to be okay for him to choose to drive on Shabbos.

If he works for a Jew, as here, he may not drive on Shabbos. Period.

 

COST FACTOR:

so it should be $3 extra a pound -do you realise what that comes to? delivery cost- it cost more money to ship kosher meat? the mashgichem and shockets salaries are offset by the hiring of illegal aliens-
meanwhile the meat companies are making millions-you seem to say they barely turn a profit-how do you explain kosher fish? or OJ( 59OZ instead of 64OZ), kosher cheese,passover stuff-a total rip off!! especially meat is higher-do they salt it more? travels father?

and then you say my favorite:
it is not just the money to the hashgacha agency. That is relatively minor in the scheme of things.

please these guys are mafia-your living in a dreamland!! keep convincing yourself-ou-ok they making tons of money-or you think its for chesed? when you buy your esrog for $100-$200 do you also tell yourself shipping costs-mashgicim etc.... then ill sell you something too-maybe kosher for apssover dishwashing liquid-im too late

 

Become a vegetarian then. Why hassle?