NATIONAL A tale of complexity, and high monetary stakes, regarding Coca-Cola and kashrut supervision today. Things Go Better For Coke With The OU ELLEN BERNSTEIN Special to The Jewish News ne year ago, Coca- Cola wasn't it. At least, in Orthodox circles. At that time the world's largest and most influential kashrut agency, the Orthodox Union (OU), put out the word that it could no longer be certain that Coke was kosher. Thus was born a contro- versy over the popular bev- erage's long-accepted hechsher or kosher certifica- tion, a dispute that the OU insists was solely motivated by the need to maintain high standards of kashrut. But critics of the OU say that politics, even greed, played into a decision that forced food establishments under OU supervision in New York to stop serving Coca-Cola for 10 months. The negative publicity generated by the OU, say critics, may have led Coca- Cola to believe it's better to do business with the kashrut certification agency that wields the most clout. The Orthodox Union flatly denies its actions got its foot in Coke's door. But the results are that the OU now supervises Coca-Cola, at least in the New York area, and the kashrut agency's "ban" on Ellen Bernstein reports for our sister paper, the Atlanta Jewish Times. the beverage has been lifted. What was behind the Or- thodox Union's loss of con- fidence in Coca-Cola's ingre- dients — and how the issue was resolved -- tells a tale of the complexity and high monetary stakes involved in kashrut supervision today. The answer appears to lie less with the OU's distrust of the beverage's ingre- dients than with its distrust of a smaller, competing kashrut agency that was se- lected by Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, USA to supervise its beverage early in 1990. Varying Standards Throughout the United States, dozens of kashrut agencies and mashgichim (kashrut inspectors) are hired by companies to en- sure that only kosher ingre- dients and kashered equip- ment are used in the manu- facture of a food product. In the half-billion dollar Kosher food industry, food manufacturers spend $20 million a year on rabbinical supervision. The result is a hechsher or kosher certifica- tion that makes the product acceptable to the growing kosher-consuming public. But not all hechshers are considered equal in the ko- sher-keeping world. There are rabbis and agencies with less stringent standards of kashrut. Such supervision has, from time to time, demanded double checking by agencies that hold to a more exacting standard. On the other hand, not ev- ery product requires inten- sive scrutiny. The gray area in kashrut inspection makes some products, such as cer- tain apple or cranberry juices, acceptable with a marginal certification or no certification at all. Other products, such as meats and baked products, require stringent supervision by a more widely accepted kash- rut agency. Coca-Cola is a beverage that leading rabbinic au- thorities believe never need- ed intensive, ongoing scru- tiny to maintain its kosher certification. Its hechsher — dating back to Atlanta Rab- bi Tobias Geffen's inspec- tion in 1935 — is based on a thorough knowledge of what ingredients go into the man- ufacture of the beverage. These ingredients never change except during Pass- over. (Kosher for Passover Coca-Cola, requires inten- sive supervision because the sweetener is changed from corn syrup to cane sugar to meet Jewish dietary restric- tions.) For 30 years, Rabbi Sim- cha Elberg of New York cer- THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 41