New Line of Kosher Chicken Launches a Conversation Around Jewish Food Ethics

This July, Grow and Behold Foods, will launch a line of kosher, pasture-raised chicken to be sold in New York and New Jersey; beef is slated to be available shortly thereafter.

A New Line of Kosher Chicken Launches a Conversation Around Jewish Food Ethics

By Leah Koenig • The Forward

When Naftali Hanau graduated from New York University with an economics degree, he left prepared for a career in banking or investing. But the Rochester, N.Y., native chose a different path: one that likely includes more feathers and trucks than those of his fellow alumni.

This July, Hanau’s company, Grow and Behold Foods, will launch a line of kosher, pasture-raised chicken to be sold in New York and New Jersey; beef is slated to be available shortly thereafter. Customers can purchase fresh whole chickens and parts through the company’s website, and either pick them up at pre-determined buying club locations or schedule a home delivery in select areas.

The chickens, which are produced for the company under Orthodox Union certification, are raised on family farms and eat a diet of grasses, bugs and small amounts of genetically modified organism-free feed. As a result, their meat is juicy and flavorful. “When my savta [grandmother] Sara tried pastured chicken, she said: ‘It tastes like spring chicken. I haven’t had this since I was a child in Poland,’” Hanau said. Fittingly, the company’s chicken line is named Sara’s Spring Chicken.

Grow and Behold is an outgrowth of the movement of American Jews who view Jewish tradition as a wellspring of food-related values. Led by such organizations as Hazon and the Jewish Farm School, and initiatives like the Magen Tzedek ethical certification, the movement has motivated a committed core of people who seek food that is both traditionally kosher and sustainingly produced.

In 2008, the widely publicized immigration raid of the Agriprocessors kosher meat processing plant (whose executive, Sholom Rubashkin, was recently sentenced to 27 years in federal prison) launched the conversation around Jewish food ethics into the mainstream. The incident also brought Agriprocessors’ production to a halt, leaving an unexpected gap in the market. “Agriprocessors had been supplying a significant percentage [an estimated 50% to 70%] of kosher meat in America,” Hanau said. “Their absence allowed for a proliferation of smaller brands.”

Among these brands is a handful of companies and buying clubs — like KOL Foods in Washington, D.C.; New York’s Mitzvah Meat and Red Heifer Farm; LoKo Meat in Boston (which enlists Hanau as the shochet, or ritual slaughterer), and now Grow and Behold — offering a sustainable alternative to industrial kosher meat. Together they represent only a fraction of the overall industry, but they point to a shifting consumer landscape.

“Just a few years ago, people thought this type of venture was insane,” LoKo co-founder Marion Menzin said. “Now they are tuning in.”

The shift is equally apparent on the national scale. “There has been particular growth within the industry for niche markets like organic and natural beef,” said Rabbi Seth Mandel, a rabbinic coordinator at the OU and an adviser to Hanau. “Many consumers will still buy meat based on price alone, but around the country you can see a change.” As he was growing up in an Orthodox household with the “butcher just around the corner,” eating kosher meat was a given for Hanau. It was not until he learned about factory farms, feedlots, antibiotic use and other practices common to the conventional meat industry that he began to re-examine his eating habits.

“At first I was outraged, and thought, ‘How could this be kosher?” he said. “Then I realized it was because kashrut dictates how an animal is killed and processed, not how it is raised. But I still did not want to eat it.” An alumnus of the Adamah Jewish farming fellowship and a graduate of professional horticulture school, Hanau had spent several years working on farms. He and his wife, Anna (a fellow alumna and former Adamah staff member), talked about starting an organic farm, but realized they could potentially make a bigger impact with meat. “Farmers’ markets and CSAs [community supported agriculture] are growing steadily, but if you keep kosher and want to eat good meat, there is a real lack of options,” Anna Hanau said.

Two years ago, Naftali Hanau began training as a shochet under the guidance of Rabbi Yehuda Benchemhoun of Brooklyn. Although he is now certified, he will not personally [shecht for Grow and Behold. Still, his knowledge of shechita – ritual slaughter] can only strengthen communications with his staff. Similarly, Hanau’s experience raising animals on small farms informs his business practices. “[Shechita impacts] only the last few minutes of an animal’s life,” he said. So while ensuring a humane slaughter is important, Hanau believes that the rest of the process — how the animal is raised, fed and transported — may have a greater proportional impact on its quality of life.

Like all new business ventures, especially ones that exist at the intersection of two niche markets, the future of ethical kosher meat is uncertain. But the efforts that Hanau has taken to personally master every part of the production process is what arguably sets apart Grow and Behold from similar initiatives. “I love to feed people, and see potential good to do in what I feel is a broken system,” he said. “Compared to the big companies I’m still a novice, but I am learning this business from the ground up.”

Leah Koenig writes a monthly column for The Forward on food and culinary trends.

Grow and Behold's website.

Comments

[Robert Wisler]

I would pay a huge premium to import these products to Cincinnati. I hope that one of the Modern Orthodox synagogues here will start an initiative to do the importation.

[Modi]

pathetic.

[randomthought]

Of all the threads to make that comment Modi, I'm not sure why you chose this one... random.

[harold]

eat a diet of grasses, bugs ... their meat is juicy and flavorful

Thanks for the heads up - YUCK! BUGS!!! Yech! That kind of flavorful I don't need. Sometimes too much honesty is not good. Would have been enough to leave it as being grass fed.

[Hometown Postville]

My mother used to raise chickens this way 40 years ago!

[Moshe Dvorkin]

At least they are are KOSHER. What a difference from
http://david-elliot.blogspot.com/

For many years we were used to taking the Kashrus of David-Elliot chicken for granted. My grandparents ate it; my parents ate it; and they never asked questions. What we did not know is that David Elliot is the only place in the world where the Shchita is done while a Goy moves the chicken against the knife held by the Shoichet. To increase speed and productivity, a Goy moves the chicken during the Shchita operation and is not allowed to stop for the Shoichet to do the Shcita properly. This turns the Goy into a partner shoichet. Joint Shchita with a goy is 100% Treif. You might as well buy goyishe treif chicken in the supermarket. If a Shoichet asks the Goy at David Elliot to stop moving for a few seconds, the Goy complains to the owner that the work is slowing down. The owner always sides with the Goy and gives a warning to the Shoichet.

Read the full story at the link above.

[Rabbi Foghorn Leghorn]

Note to Harold:
1. The "factory farming" of chickens is a relatively recent innovation. In their natural state, CHICKENS EAT BUGS. (So too, for that matter, do cows when eating grass. There are bugs on that grass.)
2. The laws of Kashrut apply only to Jews. Chickens are not Jewish, hence they are not bound by the laws of Kashrut.

[harold]

CHICKENS EAT BUGS

I am sure that they do, but from a marketing point of view one does not have point that out. Grass fed would do nicely.

If there were two chickens side by side in the supermarket, one says nothing the other says raised on grass and bugs, I would buy the "bug free" one. Ignorance is bliss!

[Shmarya]

Ignorance is bliss!

And, as readers of this blog know, 'harold' is very blissful.

[harold]

And, as readers of this blog know, 'harold' is very blissful

I knew that statement would have invoked a comment I was just curious from who. I am honored that it ws the master himself!

[Robert Wisler]

PBS recently had a show on that showed the cruelty of "factory farming" of chickens both in terms of the animals' miserable lives as well as the financial and health risks to the workers on these farms. It's well worth seeking out.

[yidandahalf]

Why would you not want to know how your food is produced and where it comes from, harold?

[harold]

Why would you not want to know how your food is produced and where it comes from, harold?

It is very simple, because if it has no relevance to the use of the end product and if the information is disgusting then I do not need to know.

As an example. If I were a guest in your home and you present me with a lovely bowl of salad. I would not appreciate it if you showed me pictures or a video on the process that was used to convert the manure to the fertilizer that was used to feed the vegetables that make up the salad.

[state of disgust]

Don't worry Harold, all the bugs have smicha and have been approved by the OU.

[sage]

The OU approves anything, that will add to its bottom line.

[yidandahalf]

harold, harold, what can one say? If the information would be disgusting (as you put it) all the more you should question and investigate. That is the point.

[harold]

harold, harold, what can one say? If the information would be disgusting (as you put it) all the more you should question and investigate. That is the point.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

[Devora]

If you are interested in kosher, sustainable, grassfed lamb, beef and poultry (just like what is described here) shipped to your door, check out KOL Foods. www.kolfoods.com.

[Yossi]

I found out it's true that there currently is a shochet at David-Elliott who flirted with girls. I spoke to several local people in Scranton to confirm that since the other shochtim denied it. (They did however tell me he stopped after he was warned by the rabbonim.)
Thank you..i'ts enough for me to choose other chickens.

[Yossi]

the shochet who was fired once did a Jackie Mason act in a hotel in Scranton.

[Bklyn11230]

do you know what factory farm chickens eat? feed that includes ground up chicken! i'll take chickens that eat grass and bugs any day.