New York Times, NPR Blow Matzo Story

The Times and NPR think the barrier to entry in the matzoh baking business is set high through legal means, and they 'prove' this by omitting all facts that prove them wrong.

 

 

Adam Davidson NPR Matzo 4-2012

 

Why Matzo Makers Love Regulation
Adam Davidson • NPR

The matzo business may be the most heavily regulated business in the world.

The regulators are rabbis, who stand on the factory floor and make sure that everything adheres to kosher law. The rules may sound burdensome, but I learned on a recent visit to a matzo factory that they can also be great for business.

My guide through the factory is one of the world's leading authorities on making matzo. He's not a rabbi, or even a Jew.

"I was raised Southern Baptist and my wife is Roman Catholic and I'm running operations for the country's largest Jewish food company," says Randall Copeland. "Only in America."

He manages the matzo production line at Manischewitz, the biggest kosher food manufacturer in the country. His job is to keep the line running fast and cheap.

But he has to answer to an on-site regulator: Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz. You can think of him as the guy who makes sure all of the rules of matzo are followed. And there are a lot of rules.

"We have talmudic commentaries," Horowitz says, pointing to a bookshelf in his office. "Obviously, [there are] a large amount of traditional law texts behind you."

Matzo bread must be unleavened. But what, precisely, does it mean to be unleavened? Rabbis debated this for centuries and gave a very precise time limit for how long dough can be left uncooked: 18 minutes.

If there's some kind of glitch, and dough sits uncooked for more than 18 minutes, "we have to stop, clean those lines, strip off all that dough, throw it away," Copeland says. "Now that's expensive. You don't want to do that."

There are tons of other rules. Matzo dough can't include all the additives that make modern bread production more efficient. The dough also can't be folded or misshapen. The oven temperature can't drop below 600 degrees.

Horowitz has five kosher law experts stationed throughout the factory, toting clipboards and wearing white smocks over their traditional black jackets. I saw one guy in a hardhat with the word "rabbi" printed across the front.

If something does not look kosher, they can pull a lever that stops the conveyor belt and diverts the matzo into a waste bin.

Rabbi Horowitz says all the rules are hard to follow. Of course they're hard to follow. The whole point of eating matzo is to remind Jews that we were once slaves, suffering in Egypt.

"If there wouldn't be difficulties, it wouldn't be a matzo," Horowitz said.

Copeland estimates that kosher laws add about 20 to 30 percent to the cost of production. That might sound bad for business. In fact, the owners of Manischewitz told me that kosher law could be the best thing they have going for them.

Alain Bankier, co-president of Manischewitz, said that the capital investment in the company's state-of-the-art matzo machinery poses a huge barrier to entry for potential competitors.

So rather than being bad for business, all those kosher rules mean Manischwitz won't have much competition.

Adam Davidson, the NPR reporter on this story, also blogs for the New York Times, and it is the Times' Magazine where the bulk of his reporting on this story is actually posted, and where he concludes his piece this way:

The matzo business offers a lesson for how companies can succeed in an increasingly competitive, global marketplace: do something that’s really, really hard. If your business is easy to replicate, then someone, somewhere (probably China) is going to undercut you. But these days many are succeeding by following the matzo principle: fashion houses are scouring the latest microtrends for inimitable looks; industrial manufacturers are making hugely difficult custom products like aircraft engines. If your business is really easy to do, don’t gloat. You might be out of a job soon.

What's most interesting about Davidson's report on the economics of matzo baking is its failure to report that Manischewitz was forced to pay a $1 million dollar fine for price fixing in the early 1990s, the maximum possible penalty at the time, and that it purchased smaller competitors, including Horowitz Brothers & Margareten and Goodman's, during the time the US Department of Justice was investigating Manischewitz but before charges were filed against it, using those brands to deceitfully raise prices industry wide. And Davidson failed to mention this even though the $1 million fine was reported (inadequately, to be sure) by the New York Times in May 1991.

Davidson also fails to mention the vast market penetration of Israeli matzoh here in the US or the impact that has had in holding down prices. And Davidson apparently has no idea that something called shmurah matzoh exists.

He also does not report the competition between various kosher supervisors, the US Department of Justice's (apparently ongoing) investigation into alleged misconduct by these rabbis and alleged price fixing by kosher food suppliers, and the ugly attempt by big kosher supervisors to force the Soleveichik rabbinic dynasty out of its position as Streit's kosher supervisor.

Everything Davidson left out is integral to the story he was reporting.

On top of this, he reports Manischewitz's claim that its matzoh is "low carb" without any comment or word from experts, even though the easy to find facts show that Manischewitz is lying.

A one ounce piece of Manischewitz matzoh has 28 grams of carb.

One ounce of wheat bread, white bread or pita bread has 15 grams of carb.

Davidson's story could have been great. All he had to do to make it so was to include the actual facts. But he and his editors at the Times and NPR did not do that.

Comments

[Reb Mendel]

Until Moshiach comes, it is more important for the secular press to say nice things about us (or at least not say bad things) than it is for them to reveal our every problem to the goyim. When we have problems, it is best to handle them "in house" through the rabbenim or maybe on some place like vin or better in yiddish that the goyim cant read.

[tonda]

Hide things from the goyem. Lie to the goyem. Deceive the goyem. Seperate yourselves from the goyem. Look down to the goyem. The goyem are only here to serve us.

The goyem treat us different? That's anti-semetic!

The goyem don't trust us? That's anti-semetic!

[moshe]

a goodly chunk of the cost of any kosher food is the graft paid to the rabbis to certify.

[ultra haredi lite]

Reb Mendel aka W4M,
Welcome back! A Gut Moed.

[state of disgust]

"Until Moshiach comes, it is more important for the secular press to say nice things about us..."

So, once the Moshiach comes the secular press can say bad things about us?

[The Boise Nurse]

To UHL,

Reb Mendel is W4M's long lost twin brother. They were separated at birth due to a bizarre neo-natal incident at a local hospital in Boise, Idaho in the winter of 1959. The midwife, who shall remain anonymous due to years of shame, had a big night out the night before. She was cross eyed and forgot she was wearing bi-focals that morning and thought she was seeing double when the twins were born. She forgot about little Mendel and there he remained on a trolley in a side room until he was thrown out in the garbage that night where a passing wolf took mercy on him and raised him with a pack in the nearby woods. After becoming bored of the wolf diet and lifestyle after five decades Mendel made his way to civilization where he discovered an internet café, whilst avoiding being hit by a meshicist mitzvah tank. Being the streetwise sort of person he was, and with a spark of divine inspiration he found his way to the FM website where after much research he discovered his lost family member. With insane sibling rivalry and half a century of lost opportiunities comes the desire for revenge. Thus mendacious, malevolent, machiavellan Mendel has tied up his brother and is only feeding him matzah and water at this time. He has also assumed his identity and internet modus operandi. Do not ask me how I know all this…Time for a drink…

[anuran]

This is why I make my own matzoh.

[hassid]

I really liked the NYTimes story but I agree its inaccurate. I am actually an expert in Matzah and have baked my own Chaburah Shmurah at home for me and my chevrah. There were some "legal" barriers to entry but if you're not commercial it isn't that hard. We sourced shmurah flour from AZ and had to rig the oven up ourselves. It ran nice and hot and we never got caught. This was just erev pesach for a few people, but various dayanim and mechabrei seforim saw the process and approved. I would say that my own matzah was a ***** in flavor and had a delicious chocolatey finish, but other matzahs like Charedim and Aronim are almost as good. Didn't do it this year, but anyone whos not a mumar on this site (eg not Shamarayah) is free to join the chaburah if you can dind us next yr!

[SkepticalYid]

You didn't get caught.. in other words you violated the fire and safety code in order to build an in house matzah factory. It's a good thing you didn't start a fire.

[Yaakov]

The story is told of the son of a great chassidishe rebbe. He had a great lvoe of Pesach, and, in particular of baking matzo. He learned every from every sefer he could to find a hiddur. He even learned, in secret, kabbalistic seforim to find every secret he could.

One erev Pesach, he was walking home with this matzo, he spotted a Jew walking towards him carrying his own matzo. He was excited at the chance to talk about matzo.

"I see you have your matzo! Which hiddurim do you have?"

"Me? I am just a simple Jew. I don't know from hiddur and chumra. I just davened to haShem, 'haKodesh baruch Hu please, just let me have kosher matzo this year".

The rebbe's son was moved at the simplicity and sincerity of the man. "Listen, these matzos here are baked with every hiddur and every chumrah my years of study could root out. These are beautiful matzos. They are as near to perfect as a man can make. But yours, they are even more beautiful! Would you be willing to trade?"

"Nu, what do I know from beauty in matzo. If you want my matzo surely you can have it. You can appreciate it, so let's trade."

The son was overjoyed and rushed home to his father to tell the story, "…and so I traded with him, and got what I wanted, these beautiful matzos, isn't that gevaldig?!"

The rebbe thought for a moment and said, "Well, I don't know if you got what you wanted but I know he did."

[John Nagle, Silicon Valley, CA]

Right. In a large production plant, it's easy to meet those timing and temperature constraints. Big bakeries are usually continuous conveyor oven operations, so the timing is all in the conveyor speed. Once the machinery is set up and the process is running well, you get consistent product.

Matzo is a simple product. A pastry production line is much more complex and has tougher time and temperature constraints, yet consistent products are cranked out by the billions. Try making a Hostess Twinkie in your kitchen.

[Shmarya]

Posted by: John Nagle, Silicon Valley, CA | April 11, 2012 at 12:24 PM

Very strong points, John.

[qwerty123]

99 cents for a box of matza is expensive?? you cna find that here in brooklyn - b/w 99 cents and $1.49 - Go to 99 cents the limit on coney island ave or jacks 99.. expiration date next year

[Yoel Mechanic]

Now that Reb Mendel is making a parody of W4M ;-) ...i hasten to add that the histrionics of all this is apparent because this style is completely out of character for the way Chareidim or Chasidim would actually talk. Now, the sentiments expressed are intended to be a dark mirror held up, for purposes of mockery. This part is certainly true, the mockery, but that doesn't mean any of this is authentic. And it certainly does _not_ lend itself to initiating a structured conversation to express any real ideas let alone improving anything.

[Happy]

I got a 5 pound box of Yehudah matzo free from Stop & Shop before pesach - I don't remember if they required a $15 or $30 minimum food purchase.

[Der Alter]

Oy, have you got it good. The cost of Matza here in New Zealand is $4.70 US for 13 sheets. I don't want to go into converting 450grams into ounces. Further, we are lucky that we can get any. Because of some bureaucratic screw up, no Gefilte fish was allowed into the country. In other words, it was a throuwback to my Bubba's time, when every thing had to be hand made in the house.

[Mike S.]

Adam Davidson, eh?
He's gotten himself a bad reputation for his 'reporting' on other matters as well:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/adam-davidson-the-1s-lord-haw-haw-fellates-wall-street.html