Bain Capital Buys Manischewitz Kosher Foods

Sankaty Advisors, an arm of the private equity capital corporation co-founded by Mitt Romney has purchased Manischewitz, the iconic matzoh maker.

Sankaty Advisors, an arm of the private equity capital corporation Bain Capital co-founded by Mitt Romney has purchased Manischewitz, the iconic matzoh maker, the New York Times reported.

…Under its new owner, a firm with expertise in revamping corporate strategy, the company is expected to promote “kosher” as a quality-control designation, rather than a simply a religious one.

“It’s a pretty powerful certification to be kosher, because it means you are holding your product to a very high standard,” Mark Weinsten, the newly appointed interim chief executive of Manischewitz, who is also a senior managing director at FTI Consulting, said in an interview. “Why is that not applicable to people who don’t keep kosher?”«

Well, Con Agra is about to find out that many of the claims its Hebrew National product's advertising makes about purity and the like that are based on its kosher supervision may not fully withstand legal challenges and, quite frankly, Manischewitz's Mark Weinsten is either very ignorant of the kosher food industry and his own company or is exaggerating.

All kosher means is that the food complies with Jewish law, halakha. That does not make it more pure, cleaner, healthier, fresher or tastier. It does not mean workers and animals are humanely treated. It does not even mean the ingredients on the label are the actual ingredients in the product.

This false promotion of kosher food as something it is not will eventually, I think, expose the kosher food industry to great shame.

And judging by the appellate court's ruling in the Hebrew National case, that could happen sooner rather than later.

Comments

[Ya'akov]

It is difficult to parse the intentions of Weinsten, but it seems that he doesn't intend to make any surpa-religious claims about the kosher certification.

It seems they are simply going to imply that it means more care was taken producing the product in order to get the hechsher on it. Later in the article there is this quote:

“There is, I believe, a consensus among American consumers that the more supervision the better,” Rabbi Yaakov Y. Horowitz, the company’s chief rabbi, said in an interview. “There was always a good feeling in American culture about kosher.”

It seems like the message is, "you can feel good that the product is kosher" which is not a claim but is claptrap.

[dh]

Well, that's it for me. I'm shallow. I'm not adding my saliva to anything Mitt Romney (of Baptizing dead Auschwitz Jews' names fame) dangles in front of me.

[Ya'akov]

dh:

Romney isn't with Bain any more. He left the firm in 2002 and ended his financial interest in it in 2012.

[bendinai]

@ dh....not just shallow, but as Ya'akov pointed out....dumb

[dh]

Well, yeah, that's what the "d" stands for.

[Ya'akov]

I didn't point out that dh is "dumb".

I had heard that Romney left Bain at some point during the presidential campaign. I had to go look. He left in 2002, but he had a retirement profit sharing deal for 10 years.

The story mentioned Romney's founder status, and absent having heard he'd left I would also have though he was still involved.

I certainly don't think that dh is dumb. We may not agree on some things but he (or she) is clearly above average intelligence.

[dh]

Golly, thanks. But I'm not so sure. I haven't shopped at Safeway since I started boycotting them circa Cesar Chavez. And I am having a similar reaction to beef since the latest Rubashkin crime family caper.

Safeway has been purchased and is going to be turned into neighborhood type stores. If they are going to be beef and grape stores, I'm screwed.

[rocky]

SR said: "All kosher means is that the food complies with Jewish law, halakha. That does not make it more pure, cleaner, healthier, fresher or tastier." A point I have been making for years. Read the ingredients on a bottle of Manischevitz gifilte fish marked kosher for Passover. Your stomach would be better off if you ate a can of sardines packed in water.