UOS introduces new kashrut measures

The board of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues (UOS) put its money where its mouth is this week with new measures relating to kashrut.

They include effective kashrut-query monitoring, new hechsher pricing, and the establishment of a mediation panel, according to a UOS update on Wednesday, 11 November.

“From the recent webinar, we saw that quite a few things needed to be addressed,” Kenny Rabson, a non-executive member of the UOS board, told the SA Jewish Report.

“We were also aware of issues raised prior to the webinar, and applied our minds to all points that were mentioned. We are determined to address every one of them.

“This is the first step in our strategy. We want to keep people informed.”

Two new pricing categories are being introduced for micro-enterprises seeking a hechsher, with the monthly base cost reduced significantly to either R500 or R1 500 depending on the number of products and inspections required.

The micro-enterprise categories include companies that have been in operation for less than a year or have a turnover of less than R1 million a year, limited to between five and 15 products. Companies that meet the criteria will revert to the lower fee from 1 December.

New companies that apply for certification will now fall into one of four categories based on their size, complexity, and other qualifying criteria.

“We knew from questions that came in that the small manufacturers were battling with hechsher costs, and we hadn’t really focused on them when we changed the pricing model,” says Rabson.

“We’ve adjusted the formula and dropped the base fee massively for people who produce fewer products using simpler manufacturing processes. The fee is now less than a quarter of a what it was before.”

Improvement to customer service involves the establishment of a kosher care customer relationship management system. This allows the kashrut department to track all queries made at Beth Din Kosher, with all incoming queries allocated a ticket number for the tracking of turnaround time and to identify any bottlenecks in the system.

Says Rabson, “We want to move away from anecdotal comments, and get real stats we can work with to reprioritise staff or arrange any necessary interventions. Queries which might be getting stuck in the wrong area can be quickly redirected, and we’ll better address and understand the information received.”

The first stage of the system will be launched on 16 November, with another to follow in the first quarter of 2021, allowing the UOS to conduct a survey in the community on the level of service received.

Finally, the UOS board is appointing a panel of two independent community members and one board member with legal and business experience to review complaints from food manufacturers regarding either pricing or certification processing.

Rabson stresses that the option is open only to those companies who have fully exhausted proper engagement with the kosher department and remain unsatisfied.

“This is a last resort purely for product manufacturers,” he says. “It has nothing to do with complaints over prices of chicken or the like. It’s a narrow mandate, but an important one.

“The public didn’t like the fact that the Ombud wasn’t independent of the UOS or that we called it an Ombud, which sounds legal. It’s not. This is really a mediation space for manufactures and the kashrut department to resolve pricing or processing issues.

“We are still in the process of appointing people formally, and will publish the names of those involved in the coming days.”