Melissa Hoffman, M.S.

Since kosher certifications lack purview over how animals are bred, treated, and handled prior to slaughter, a third party auditor is one way to verify that farms meet higher welfare standards. Unfortunately, no third party certification currently includes comprehensive standards for kosher meat products, and therefore no kosher meat products are certified as higher welfare.

Kosher certifications lack purview over how animals are bred, treated, and handled prior to slaughter. Unhealthy genetics and restricted or no access to the outdoors are conditions consistent across animal production in the United States and, increasingly, the world, including for animals that are certified kosher.

People commonly believe that kosher production is different from the rest of conventional industrial farming, and that animals raised and slaughtered for the kosher market

Kosher companies and Jewish media are sounding an alarm that kosher chicken is in short supply in anticipation of Passover.

The data confirms what JIFA has inferred from previous research that shows people think kosher food is inherently better: consumers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, extend this belief to the way farmed animals are bred and raised, despite the fact virtually all kosher and non-kosher meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs come from animal raised on factory farms.

The concept of kosher has been a mainstay of Jewish life for centuries. Ancient kashrut laws have provided Jewish communities with a framework for determining which foods are “fit to eat” and how to slaughter animals according to approved religious procedures.

Most kosher-certified animal products—and generally all of the ones found in grocery stores— come from the same factory farms that raise the vast majority of non-kosher animals for food.

Bans do more to restrict religious practices than to improve conditions for farmed animals—like in the US, most meat, including kosher, comes from animals that spend their entire lives on factory farms.