on the side of
truth in labelling?
On the one hand, a sales pitch advocating kosher labelling claims that kosher certification offers a sales advantage � that consumers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, prefer products that are kosher-certified:
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by Dr. Avrom Pollak, President, STAR-K KOSHER CERTIFICATION, 11 Warren Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21208 USA Tel. 410-484-4110, Fax: 410-653-9294, E-mail: [email protected] Many of you here this afternoon are already fully aware that kosher certification can offer your company a distinct sales advantage. Numerous market studies have demonstrated that consumers will most often select a product with a kosher certification over a similar item that is not certified. Furthermore, these same studies reveal that kosher certification is considered a plus among a wide spectrum of consumers both Jewish and non-Jewish. Opening of an address available online at http://www.kashrut.com/trade/trade_links/hechsher. |
On the other hand, however, there looms an enormous incongruity � which is that kosher labelling is deliberately secret. To take me as an example � whereas in December of 1999 I would have estimated that the number of kosher-labelled products in my house was zero, a count revealed that it in fact considerably exceeded 100 � a rather astonishing discrepancy. From my own experience, and from the experience of others I have spoken to, I would venture to hypothesize that something like 9 out of 10 Canadians are unaware that their food and household products come with kosher labels, and perhaps even 99 out of 100. The average consumer who takes the trouble to read package labels will not recognize the esoteric kosher symbols that he encounters there.
We are left, then, with two questions: (1) Might the claim that kosher labelling will increase sales be disingenuous? (2) Are we to continue in our present state of conspiratorial, secret labelling, or enter into a new era of truth in labelling?
Such truth in labelling can easily be realized by legislating that kosher identification always start with the word "KOSHER," that a Magen David be placed immediately below, and beneath that any further information which may be of use to the kosher-certification agency, or to the consumer. (Of course nothing prevents the CJC from adopting truth-in-labelling practices even before they are imposed by legislation.) The contrast between the old way of doing it and the new way is illustrated below:
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OLD WAY: Secrecy in Labelling |
NEW WAY: Truth in Labelling |
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Of course the legislation could stipulate that the new, informative label be enclosed in a circle rather than a rectangle, if continuity with current COR graphics were desired. The location of the kosher label should also be standardized, either close to the product name, or else close to the bar code � as things are done today, the kosher label is sometimes prominent, but at other times hidden. (One imagines that if kosher labelling is thought to improve sales, then manufacturers will prefer to display it prominently beside the product name rather than hiding it away near the bar code.) And of course, somewhere should be readily available to the consumer the expansion of acronyms, as for example that COR stands for Council of Orthodox Rabbis.
The impression that your answer would be attempting to correct here is that the promotional claims of increased purchasing by the general public following kosher certification is palpably false, as kosher certification is kept secret from all but a select group. This negative impression is bolstered by such observations as the objection of Jewish groups to being required by the European Parliament to label kosher meat as kosher, which requirement was expected by Jewish representatives to decrease sales, leading to a doubling or tripling of kosher meat prices.
To put it another way, the impression that your answer would be attempting to correct here is that the CJC knows that public recognition that COR stands for Council of Orthodox Rabbis, and that it constitutes kosher certification, would lead to a drop in sales to the general public of products bearing the COR label.
To put it still another way, the impression that your answer would be attempting to correct here is that the CJC promotes the use of a label whose significance must be kept secret in order to avoid causing a collapse in sales.