If your house is anything like mine planning and coordinating “Operation Pesach” can make you feel you’re running a factory. With a harried mother as foreman her industrious team of children and the puzzled cleaning lady work to dispose of chometz faster than the baby brings it right back in.

The woman in charge needs critical skills: time management problem solving organization budgeting to name a few. And there’s no room for extending the deadline; by Erev Pesach every item on that never-ending shopping list must be bought every crumb of chometz removed the house sparkling clean not to mention the extensive menu prep for the Seder and other Yom Tov meals.

Yet the scope of our home preparations pales in comparison to those necessary in industrial or health-care settings before the holiday. Here’s a peek into the steps taken by several companies and a hospital to get ready for Pesach. After learning of the complicated process and the excruciating details that must be considered you may find yourself grateful for the size of your house.

Orchestrated Oganization at Osem

For Osem producers of the ever popular Bissli and Bamba — not to mention a vast array of kosher-for-Pesach products — preparing for Pesach requires a large scale of coordination. “The basics of Pesach cleaning at home and in a factory are identical; they were given to Moshe at Har Sinai and elaborated in Shulchan Aruch” begins Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap the rav of Osem when describing the kashering campaign of the gigantic complex for Pesach. “The difference is that in a factory everything is bigger. At home you may use a big pot or vat for hagalas keilim; in a factory we use huge ‘bathtubs’ fitted with mammoth heating elements that boil water to 100 degrees Celsius.” The cleaning crew even uses cranes to lift certain parts of the production lines to kasher them.

The entire process of kashering the factory is painstaking “down to the smallest detail” assures Rav Charlap. All elements of the factory are cleaned thoroughly including those not on the actual production line like walls and windows. “It’s not a chumrah ” explains Rav Charlap. “Some production lines utilize ingredients that are chometz gamur including flour and we kasher them to produce kosher l’Pesach items — for example the soup mix production line. Flour can scatter in the air and land on walls pipes or windows. That’s why we bring in a cleaning company to scrub every corner from the ceiling downward and wrap unused pipes.”

Osem takes extra precautions to avoid mixing Pesach ingredients with those for the rest of the year. “The raw materials area is totally isolated with no entry for anyone not employed in the production line” adds Rav Charlap. “The staff that produces kosher l’Pesach items has different colored uniforms.”

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