Mediation Between AgriStar and The CHK Breaks Down Over The Issue of Other Hashgachos

by CrownHeights.info

The news broke this past Thursday that mediation between AgriStar Meats and The CHK had begun, while in truth, they had already collapsed. The talks, highly anticipated in the Crown Heights community with the hope of preventing a meat shortage or an increase in prices with Pesach approaching, ended abruptly just two weeks after they started.

According to sources familiar with the discussions, efforts to broker peace between AgriStar and the CHK commenced shortly after the CHK announced their unexpected decision to sever ties with AgriStar, incidentally via an email sent at 12:05am. When an intermediary approached AgriStar hoping to “mend fences”, they readily agreed, expressing their desire to avoid conflict with the CHK.

However, complications arose during negotiations.

While reaching an agreement on kosher standards seemed feasible, Agri wanted the standard to be uniform, meaning policies upheld equally across all CHK meats. For instance, the CHK had requested inspections for Tzomet Hagidim be done in a specific way. Open to the idea in principle, AgriStar maintained that should this new policy be implemented, the implementation should be uniform for all CHK suppliers, including David Elliot, who is still under the CHK but currently operates under the previous CHK policy, the same policy that the CHK are demanding that Agri change. Tensions escalated even more when the CHK insisted that any other Lubavitcher hechsher on any Agri meat was unacceptable, and demanded the removal of Lamed-K from the plant entirely.

The negotiations completely fell apart when the CHK proposed sidelining Weissmandl for CHK runs and instead proposed appointing an “inexperienced” individual to oversee the CHK plant operation. This was problematic because Weissmandl provides a Hechsher on the entire plant, and all the operations are interconnected. If something goes wrong on the CHK line, it would also negatively affect Weissmandl’s product. In addition, many of the restaurants that purchase Shor Harbor are under other mainstream Kashrus agencies that accept Weissmandl’s Hechsher but not the CHK Hechsher alone. With Weissmandl’ and the Lubavitcher Hechsher together, many more restaurants are willing to buy it.

“It almost appears as if the CHK wasn’t operating in good faith. You can’t remove the general Rav Hamachsher and replace him with someone inexperienced. This is common sense,” remarked a former employee at AgriStar.

Sources close to conversations told CrownHeights.info that Rabbi Weissmandl expressed frustration with the lack of consistency in the CHK’s protocols. For example, the protocols for Lubavitcher Shchita under the CHK Hechsher mandate two Lubavitch Shochtim, one to check and one to Shecht, as well as Lubavitch Bodkim. This was not done at the CHK meat run that took place at Solomon’s plant last week. CHK essentially breached their own protocol, which according to an Agri insider, if it had taken place at Agri, the CHK would not have granted their Hechsher for the run.

An internal WhatsApp conversation from a Kashrus agency shared with CrownHeights.info shed some additional light on further issues.

Last Friday, the CHK was quoted by a news website regarding all cold cuts from Agri, that as long as they still have the CHK Hechsher, they are Kosher for Passover, even without the KFP label. Agri responded to the website with a clarification that only products labeled KFP are indeed kosher for Passover. The CHK has since retracted their notice and clarified that the product requires a KFP.

“I think some of those involved are very sincere, and it was an obvious mistake, but this points to the fact that CHK needs more experienced staff to properly give a Hechsher on a large plant,” a source in the Kashrus industry told CrownHeights.info.