Sounds like fun, I thought, when I was asked to check out an ice cream cone manufacturing plant in Montreal

Rabbi Menachem Lefkowitz*, Kemach’s mashgiach and my contact person, assured me that the drive to the plant shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes — tops. There was a hitch, though. I had to come that very day, at a specific time, because this was their final production day; the factory wasn’t scheduling a new kosher output for Kemach till months later. Talk about pressure.

Naturally, this assigned time was at the height of Montreal’s traffic. Inching my way along the Metropolitan expressway, a trip I hadn’t taken since before the pandemic, the half-hour drive took me an hour and a half. Rabbi Lefkowitz was pretty anxious, as well.

“The owner has been here since 5:30 in the morning. He wants to leave already,” he told me over the phone.

What fun!

When I finally arrived, I was surprised at how few vehicles were parked outside the building. Had everyone left? But inside, the place was packed, and production was working at full speed.

Given the lateness of the hour, Rabbi Lefkowitz rushed me to the office, where he handed me a lab coat and hairnet to cover my sheitel.

Flour and Batters

Once I was dressed in compliance with regulations, Rabbi Lefkowitz hurried me toward the factory door. He threw it open, and I was catapulted into a different kind of universe: a noisy, hot environment — just a taste of what was to come.

What first strikes a new visitor is a gigantic sack of flour hanging from the ceiling two stories high, as well as pails of batter, each colored differently: chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, and natural.

“The batters all taste alike,” Rabbi Lefkowitz shouted over the noise. “It’s just the colors that are different.”

The batter consists of flour, canola oil, water, sugars, salt, flavoring, and soya lecithin, a recipe that hasn’t changed since the plant opened over 60 years ago.

“No eggs?” I ask, shouting back.

“Companies haven’t used real eggs since forever,” he answers.

The company supplies all the ingredients: Kemach is fortunate that it didn’t need to change any of them for the cones to become mehadrin kosher. However, there are other issues to consider.