Kosher : Articles - January 2007

Canned Vegetables: Can it be Kosher?

How often have we heard the query, "What's the problem with plain canned vegetables? It's only vegetables, water and salt in a can!" True. It's also true that today you can buy vegetables with a hechsher, salt with a hechsher, water with a hechsher even cans with a hechsher! But does 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4? Can a kosher consumer buy canned corn off the shelf or should the kosher consumer beware?

As long as mankind has been gathering and harvesting food, he has been challenged to preserve or to extend the shelf life of the food beyond its immediate availability or arrival from a field, hence creating the science of food preservation. Ancient methods of long term food storage included drying, salting, spicing, and fermenting. Canning is a relatively recent method of food preservation that was discovered by Nicholas Appert in France in 1809. This evolved into a major form of food preservation in the 1900's, and continues to advance in the 21st century.

Modern canning remains a technologically sound method to preserve foods and is the method most often considered when a low cost, high quality shelf life product is desired. Canned products run the gamut from milchig to fleishig, from evaporated milk to canned meats, and plenty of products in between. Today there are over 600 canneries in North America, many of which produce in more than one facility, preparing a multiple array of products.

Today, in this country's cornucopia of plenty, vegetable canning plays a significant role in this vast industry. Does canning create kashrus problems? Where are the kashrus hot spots? Let us walk through these various processes and target the kashrus concerns of vegetable canning.

The industry breaks down vegetable canning into six general categories.

Root Vegetables predominantly refers to beets, carrots, potatoes and sweet potatoes, otherwise known as yams. As with most vegetables, root vegetables are seasonal. Potatoes are packed during the spring and summer months while yams are a summer and fall product. Leafy Vegetables include spinach and other garden greens such as kale, turnip, collard and mustard greens, which are spring and fall varieties. String Beans in their multiple forms (cut, whole, and French style) comprise a canning company's string bean line. Fresh Pack consists of items such as fresh corn and fresh peas, while Dry Pack refers to the wide variety of dried beans, garbanzo, kidney, great northern, butter beans, and black eyed peas, to name a few. Mushrooms, asparagus and rutabagas are some good examples of Specialty Canning Vegetables.

Cleaning the Crop:
One of the golden rules of successful canning is that good, clean, healthy vegetables can better, taste better, preserve better and sell better. Therefore, vegetables undergo rigorous inspection, cleaning, testing, and more cleaning and checking, to assure that the prepared vegetable is a quality one. Leafy vegetables, in particular, are tested to see that they are free of any insect infestation, toloyim. The insects that are commonly found in leafy vegetables are known as aphids and thrips. Aphids are small, green, stubborn predators that attach themselves to the vegetables. Thrips are minute, dark-winged insects that attack plants and fruit. The trap flask test is performed on a sample of leafy vegetables taken from each batch that has been reel washed, paddle washed, pressure washed, and blanched. Two leafy vegetables that commonly present an aphid problem are spinach and kale. Canning companies constantly combat this predator. Through a triple effort of control in the field, development of aphid resistant varieties of spinach and garden greens, and aggressive cleaning efforts the normal aphid score is zero on a trap flask test.

The pre-canning preparation for other vegetables does not include lab testing but each canner employs its own unique method of ridding the raw vegetables of extraneous matter. Today, new computerized detection systems have been installed to automatically detect extraneous matter before entering the plant for processing. Dirt and extraneous matter are shaken out through dry reels and rocks and stones are removed with destoners. After the vegetables pass the initial detection system, the vegetables are ready for the next stages of processing. The peel of root vegetables is steamed, peeled and scrubbed before dicing, slicing, and blanching.

Filled to the Rim:
At this stage the vegetables are ready for canning. To make the finished product, various systems begin to interact. Empty cans are pre-washed and conveyed to fill stations where vegetables and hot brine, syrups or sauces fill the cans. Simple brine consists of water and salt. Sweetened vegetables are usually sweetened with a blend of water, corn syrup and liquid sugar. Other vegetables are flavored with sauces. Sauces are a combination of corn syrups, tomato sauces, spice blends, flavors, vinegar and oil. As usual, sauces need careful kosher ingredient monitoring because some sauces are flavored with meat and/or chicken flavors, others with cheese.

Vegetables Under Pressure:
Now the cans are ready to be sealed. Empty cans are filled and capped and are conveyed to the retorts. A retort is a large pressure cooker that cooks the vegetables for a controlled length of time and pressure to create a bacteria free environment in the can so any microorganisms that may cause spoilage will be killed.

Retorts, like any other piece of machinery, varies from the simple to the sophisticated. The old standard basket retort looks like a large horizontal torpedo that opens up to accept large baskets of cans in its cavity. Crateless retorts, such as May-lo, have the cans drop into a bed of cold water to cushion prior to steam. Once the cooker is filled with cans, the water is released from the cavity so the cans can be steamed. A Sterilimatic Continuous Cooker has the cans rotate on the inside wall of shell via a system of welded can tracks, thus cooking the cans as they move along the track. A Hydrostatic Retort is a six story building of rotating shelves that can cook over 25,000 cans at one time when filled to capacity. Furthermore, today’s Hydrostatic cookers can have multiple separate shelving systems moving at different speeds. It is not unusual to have two types of vegetables retorted at the same time in a Hydrostatic cooker; quite a difference to the couple of hundred cans cooked in a basket retort.

After retorting and cooling, the cans are palletized and stored until they are ready for labeling. This is known as bright stacking. Since all cans look alike in their unlabeled state, each company employs their own unique coding system, labeling the lids with a code before capping the can. For years, it was common practice to emboss the lid with the coded product and production information. Today, laser coding is fast replacing the old cumbersome embossing systems. Computerized laser printing is far more versatile and can be used as an effective tool for pre-programmed kashrus labeling so that labeling errors can be minimized.

Diversify Your Pack:
It goes without saying that any production facility is at the manufacturing mercy of many factors, including machine breakdowns, personnel problems, and quality control. Canning plants also have to contend with the fickle feelings of mother nature. Simply put, if it is rainy, you cannot can what can't be harvested. Similarly, during a non-growth season, you cannot can what does not grow. What's a canning plant to do? Some plants will can many different varieties of vegetables to minimize down time. For example, a facility will can yams from August through December and potatoes from May through July. However, it doesn't take much to see that even with two varieties there are still many dormant months to address. Some plants maintain an abbreviated production year and utilize the off-season for maintenance and repair. Other companies add a whole new dimension to their canning venue...dry pack.

Canning dry pack beans is prudent and convenient because the product is not governed by season or weather. Dry pack can have a production life of its own and be packed for long periods of time or be used as a fill-in on rainy days during a harvest season. Dry beans are easily re-hydrated. After soaking for several hours they are then treated as a fresh vegetable. Dry pack is very versatile and in its versatility lies the major kashrus concerns of a canning company. Amongst the many varieties of canned dry pack beans are the American favorites, pork and beans, and bacon and beans.

When producing pork and beans, the common cannery practice is to put a small amount of pork in each can of pork and beans. Some companies use automatic meat depositors or flumes which automatically calibrates the meat proportion to the bean ratio; others still use the hit or miss hand deposit system. No matter what the system, the amount of meat is miniscule. Yet, to the question that was once posed to a canning manufacturer, "Since you put only one tiny piece of meat in the pork and beans, what is the real purpose for the meat?" "For the label," was the reply.

Truthfully, in order to avoid being regulated by the USDA, a canning company must keep the amount of meat per can below 2%! Indeed, in most cases, this small meat quantity would be nullified, botul in the can because the meat quantity is less than 1/60 of the total volume of the can’s content. This principle holds true in the vast majority of can sizes from the 15 oz. can to the 128 oz. size. In the single portion smaller sized cans, 10 oz. and smaller, the pork may not be botul.

What difference would bitul make? The small piece of pork would always remain non-kosher. Who cares if the pork is botul b'shishim or not? Obviously the concern is not for the product itself, but for maintaining the kosher integrity of the Kosher food preparer. When a kosher consumer picks up a can of corn that does not bear certification, these questions definitely are real concerns. What was produced in the plant? Have these cans been retorted together with a treif product? If the retorts are disqualified because of the pork and beans, all subsequent vegetable productions would be disqualified as well. When kosher certifying a vegetable cannery, an integral part of the hechsher is to make sure that the kosher status of the processing equipment does not become compromised.

Moreover, as ethnic food popularity grows, so does canning diversification. A relatively new product that is available in cans is a Mexican favorite known as refried beans. Refried beans, a non-kosher combination of beans, lard and seasonings, requires long periods of time to cook prior to canning. Other southern and southeastern favorites include shrimp gumbo and creole turtle soup. These specialty items use the same batch-up tanks, fill lines and cookers as the regular canned vegetables. It goes without saying that companies using common equipment for specialty batch cooking present real kashrus concerns for regular canned vegetables unless those plants are thoroughly kasherized between non-kosher and kosher productions and are carefully monitored. Today, due to the demands of the kosher consumer, many refried bean recipes have been reformulated and vegetable shortening has been substituted for lard.

Furthermore, another large grey area would present itself in the private label sector. The store brands, generic label, or food service label, can be made in many different facilities. Productions are moved from place to place, depending upon product availability and low price. There would be no way of knowing whether the corn or string beans are made in a totally kosher facility or in a plant that produces both kosher and non-kosher on the same equipment. Here again, the hechsher on the can gives the consumers the ability and confidence to separate the grey into black and white.

Specialty productions:
In order to reach the widest kosher consumer base, canning manufacturers have become attuned to the needs and requirements of a growing kosher consumer base. For example, more and more kosher consumers demand that their canned potatoes and yams not only be kosher but bishul Yisroel, as well. There is a questions among Halachic authorities whether a canned product requires bishul Yisroel.

Bishul Yisroel is required for food items that are fit to be served at a fancy affair or banquet. The term that is used in the Shulchan Aruch is whether the food item is fit for the king’s table, oleh al shulchan melachim. If the food item meets the criteria, a Yehudi has to participate in a significant or meaningful way in the cooking of the product. An example of a significant act would be turning on the oven or placing the product onto the oven to cook.

Since more and more kosher consumers demand that their canned potatoes and yams are bishul Yisroel, kosher certifying agencies require that certified potato and sweet potatoes be bishul Yisroel. Typically, bishul Yisroel is achieved in a canning plant or factory, when the mashgiach (kosher field supervisors) would turn on the boilers that provide the steam for the cookers and retorts. The mashgiach turns on the boiler at the commencement of the canning season and would monitor the boiler throughout the season to make sure that the bishul Yisroel standard would not be compromised.

Passover productions require full-time supervision and kosherization of the facility. Although most canning facilities do not can chametz-based products, the facility is treated as though chametz has been processed on the equipment and full kosherization is implemented. Moreover, care must be taken that any stray bean, corn or peas not be inadvertently mixed into the totes holding Kosher for Passover vegetables.

Foreign productions:
Today, in our growing global economy, more and more specialty canning productions take place overseas. Today, a full array of imported quality kosher canned specialty items have been made available to the kosher consumer. Baby corn, hearts of palm, olives, peppers, and even stuffed dolmas (vine leaves), are but a few. China, Turkey, Holland, Spain, Greece and Israel are just a few countries where kosher canning abounds. Productions are worldwide. Many of the issues that face the kosher canning industry in the United States are not relevant abroad. Pork and beans is an American product for the U.S. market and is typically not produced in foreign canning facilities. Bishul Yisroel is a relevant issue for many of the specialty items such as stuffed vine leaves. Those productions would require a full-time supervisor. Since vine leaves are stuffed with rice and other ingredients, full-time supervision would be required to oversee the production.

China is fast becoming the frontrunner in all aspects of kosher food production; canning is no exception. One vegetable that has challenged the kosher canning industry is mushrooms. Chinese mushrooms are grown in open fields, unlike their U.S. or Holland counterparts. Due to open field growth, the mushrooms are susceptible to tolayim infestation. Even productions that have had full-time supervision had to be cancelled, due to the fact that the raw mushrooms were infested and could not be adequately cleansed. So, too, is the case with canned artichokes from Spain. Artichokes or hearts can house tolayim in the folds of the quarters. Since they are also susceptible to infestation, certification is limited to artichoke bottoms.

The Best Buys:
In the past, it was assumed that canned vegetables, such as corn or peas, were overwhelmingly produced in an all vegetable, non-problematic, kosher environment. That being the case, the kosher consumer had the right to assume that these vegetables whose labels did not bear kosher certification can be purchased without special kosher certification, unless there is evidence to the contrary. All bean products are produced by companies that specialize in dry pack bean productions, where there is a great likelihood that pork and beans or other meat productions are taking place. Therefore, the following bean products must be purchased with a hechsher: canned lima beans, kidney beans, chick peas, garbanzo beans, great northern beans, black-eyed peas, purple hull and navy beans.

However, today with the ever increasing need for optimizing production and a quest for product diversification, the same set of previous assumptions for corn and peas may not be the case. Bearing these facts in mind, in an unprecedented kashrus inter-agency policy decision, all varieties of canned vegetables, including corn and peas, are now approved for use by all the major kosher certification agencies only when bearing reliable kosher certification. Of course, if the determination can be made that a canned vegetable variety has been produced in an all kosher plant, the canned vegetable would be approved sans hechsher. However, this determination is often hard to make. The same rule of thumb holds true to canned tomato products which have similar concerns as canned vegetables. Foreign canned products require reliable kosher certification, as well.

It is our hope that this article will enhance each kosher consumer’s understanding of this fascinating industry and help give a renewed appreciation of the ongoing research of kosher certification agencies on behalf of the kosher consumer.