Title
Kosher : Private Regulation in the Age of Industrial Food / Timothy D. Lytton.
ISBN
9780674075238
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]
Copyright
©2013
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (240 p.) : 12 graphs, 2 tables
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/harvard.9780674075238 doi
Dewey Decimal Classification
338.4/766100882960973
Summary
Generating over $12 billion in annual sales, kosher food is big business. It is also an unheralded story of successful private-sector regulation in an era of growing public concern over the government's ability to ensure food safety. Kosher uncovers how independent certification agencies rescued American kosher supervision from fraud and corruption and turned it into a model of nongovernmental administration. Currently, a network of over three hundred private certifiers ensures the kosher status of food for over twelve million Americans, of whom only eight percent are religious Jews. But the system was not always so reliable. At the turn of the twentieth century, kosher meat production in the United States was notorious for scandals involving price-fixing, racketeering, and even murder. Reform finally came with the rise of independent kosher certification agencies which established uniform industry standards, rigorous professional training, and institutional checks and balances to prevent mistakes and misconduct. In overcoming many of the problems of insufficient resources and weak enforcement that hamper the government, private kosher certification holds important lessons for improving food regulation, Timothy Lytton argues. He views the popularity of kosher food as a response to a more general cultural anxiety about industrialization of the food supply. Like organic and locavore enthusiasts, a growing number of consumers see in rabbinic supervision a way to personalize today's vastly complex, globalized system of food production.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Mrz 2022)
Frontmatter
Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE. Rivalry and Racketeering
CHAPTER TWO. From Canned Soup to Packaged Nuts
CHAPTER THREE. Sour Grapes and Self- Regulation
CHAPTER FOUR. Taking Stock
Conclusion
Appendix A: Controversy over OU Dominance of Kosher Meat Certification
APPENDIX B. An Overview of Antitrust Concerns
APPENDIX C. The Iowa Slaughter house Scandal and the Movement for Ethical Kashrus
APPENDIX D. Self- Reported Data from Big Five Kosher Certification Agencies
APPENDIX E. Supermarket Survey Data
Glossary of Terms and Names
List of Acronyms
Acknowledgments
Index
