Rav Verner has given his hechsher to a brand of chickens called Hod Chefer. The hechsher he gave to this companies chickens was a mehadrin hechsher. In this letter, Rav Verner announces his decision to remove the mehadrin status of the hechsher, and the demotion to a regular kosher hechsher instead. The first two pages of the letter are the announcement of the decision, and the approval of the new status. The next pages are a letter to the shochtim and supervisors explaining his decision (I will only translate the last pages - the letter explaining his decision).
By the way, the change is effective immediately. Rav Verner says that the company is changing the packaging to remove the word mehadrin from the label, but if you should come across such chickens that still say mehadrin, they should be treated as regular kosher and not mehadrin. People who eat this brand of chicken and want the mehadrin level should be aware that Rav Verner says these chickens are no longer mehadrin.
Rav Verner writes to the shochtim explaining:
I feel obligated to explain to you why i decided to lower the level of the hechsher of the Hod Chefer slaughterhouse from mehadrin kosher to regular kosher - not mehadrin, so that nobody should imagine that there has been a weakness in your holy work.
I testify about you that your quality of work has not changed n the slightest recently. Just the opposite, you have been more careful and more diligent in your holy work and you stand on the guard of kashrus with strength and wisdom, with fear of God and great expertise. Everybody knows that your work is a prime example of mehadrin kashrus.
The reason for the lowering of the level of kashrus is due to recently a number of very important Badatzes have come to our place and are slaughtering many chickens in a special unit nearby us. The mehadrin chickens they package into special packages with the hechsher of those Badatzes using their own name. The chickens that they reject from being mehadrin they are passing to us for us to kasher along with the chickens that we shechted here. The administrators of the factory have asked me that these chickens should be sold with the produce of Hod Chefer under my name and with my hechsher as mehadrin.
And I ask, how is it possible to ask me to do such a thing? All the shochtim and bodkim of those Badatzes have not been appointed by me, they are not working under my authority, but under the authority of those Badatzes - and those Badatzes do not allow their name to display on this produce under any level of kashrus, yet from me they want me to approve it as mehadrin, while the Badatzes wont even give it a regular kosher status....
About 20% to 30% of the chickens shechted by those Badatzes are rejected daily by the and want to salt those chickens separately, and then I would be able to continue giving the mehadrin hechsher to the chickens shechted by us at Hod Chefer and I would give those rejected chickens the kashrus of regular kosher.But, the administration of the factory has decided to transfer to us all those chickens slaughtered by the other Badatzes, and that we should kasher them together with our chickens - yet we know salting is like boiling - and a high percentage of our chickens are mixed up with the chickens being brought from there, and how can they demand of me to certify those as mehadrin!
This is the reason that I am forced, with great pain and distress, to lower the level of kashrus of Hod Chefer to regular kosher - not mehadrin. There are other reasons as well, but out of the ways of peace I will not state them.
The factory administration has promised to me a number of times that they would fix the situation, that the other chickens will be kashered separately, but have reneged on those promises. So, I cannot give the mehadrin hechsher to this mixed up produce when a large percentage is really not mehadrin.
I pray together with you that the factory administration will find a way to separate our produce from their produce so that we will be able to upgrade the level of our kashrus certification on our chickens back to mehadrin.
thoughts:
I imagine Rav verner must know the reason those chickens were rejected and is not suspicious of them actually being not kosher rather than just not mehadrin. He does not say what was wrong with them and why those Badatzes rejected them, but even as regular kosher he could not accept them unless he knew they were really so.
20-30% sounds like an extremely high percentage of rejects, specifically for chickens. I am very curious what they are being rejected for.
I am surprised the administration is willing to give up the mehadrin status for this and is not quick to create a method to keep the batches of chickens separate. The mehadrin chickens are sold at a higher price than regular kosher chickens, and they have sold them so for a long time until now. Suddenly dropping the price is going to be a big hit. The increased volume must be humongous to make up for it.
I commend Rav Verner for sticking to his guns despite the heavy pressure he must have been under...
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