How will the kashrus industry be reshaped by coronavirus?

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s the coronavirus has shut down the world economy and driven millions into unemployment, one sector has boomed: the food industry, which has struggled to keep shelves stacked as global supply chains shut down.

But kashrus agencies and the wider kosher industry are racing to design solutions for their own unique coronavirus-era problems, from how to conduct hashgachah remotely, the risk of being caught up in the geopolitical tussle over China, and a threatened contraction of the kosher food industry.

“New certification is frozen for the moment, because we can’t give hashgachah without access to factories,” says Rabbi Moshe Elefant, who is chief operating officer of the OU. “In the first phase when most factories in China and then Europe were under lockdown, there was nothing to certify. But now that China — where there are more than 600 OU-certified factories — is opening up, it’s hard to get mashgichim.”

Hashgachah in China involves traveling Israeli mashgichim and local Chabad shluchim, Rabbi Elefant explains. “Most of the shluchim have left, and for mashgichim to come — even if they can get a flight — involves two weeks’ quarantine when they come back. Who wants to work like that?”

Absent boots on the ground, the OU has turned to a mixture of technology and detective work to continue existing kashrus certification. “In places that don’t need constant hashgachah, such as facilities only making kosher pareve, we have been operating by virtual hashgachah,” says Rabbi Elefant. “Where the mashgiach knows the factory well, he directs a worker there on Zoom to show him around the machinery. ‘Show me this machine,’ or ‘Turn right here to this piece of equipment,’ he’ll say.”

The technology-based process, he says, is then backed up by old-fashioned detective work: comparing the paperwork, figuring out which ingredients are coming into the factory via invoices.

That combined method is employed at more than half of OU-certified factories in China, but in places that are more complicated from a kashrus point of view, such as those that produce meat, cheese, or wine, hashgachah has ground to a halt. In addition, no new business of any kind can go forward. “Companies are still coming to us for certification, but we can’t do that remotely — a mashgiach needs to know the factory very well.”