By COLlive reporter
Kosher Australia supervision, a kashrus agency led by Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick, announced this week that it has revoked the kosher certification of Chocolatine, a popular Kosher bakery in Melbourne, Australia, following what it described as “intentional breaches” of Kashrus standards at the company’s newly opened factory on Glen Huntly Road in Melbourne.
The bakery is frequented by many in the Jewish community. On its Facebook Page, it is described as a “Modern Kosher Patisserie showcasing pastry chef Eyal Hazan’s talent and creativity.” It also says it offers Cholov Yisroel and Parve products.
According to a statement released on Wednesday, Kosher Australia was first alerted late Sunday evening to concerns of “possible improper activity” at the premises. On Monday, Kosher Australia’s rabbis and management conducted a thorough inspection of the factory and its surrounding areas. The inspection, they said, confirmed the allegations and revealed clandestine and intentional breaches of Kashrus, which required the immediate removal of the certification.
As a result, Chocolatine was instructed to close its doors without delay. The proprietors subsequently accepted that they could no longer remain under kosher supervision and preemptively issued a public statement announcing the discontinuation of their kosher certification.
Shortly thereafter, Kosher Australia confirmed the matter publicly, notifying consumers that Chocolatine was no longer under its supervision and advising that all existing products should be discarded.
In its statement, Kosher Australia emphasized that “the required measures for responsible Kashrus supervision were deliberately circumvented, constituting a grave breach of the trust upon which Kashrus certification is built.”
The organization acknowledged the disappointment and concern of the many kosher consumers affected by the development. “Unfortunately, even with the best safeguards, conditions of certification enforced by the most reliable agencies have sometimes been breached by uncooperative licensees, making immediate corrective action necessary,” they said.
Kosher Australia added that it has conducted a full review of the matter and is now implementing additional oversight processes to further strengthen its supervision. “We remain committed to upholding the highest standards of Kashrus and will continue to act responsibly and decisively in the best interests of the kosher consumer,” the statement concluded.
It seems the products they sold were not kosher. As such, do we ned to kasher our kitchens and utensils used with their products? The Kashrus organization MUST provide the public with instructions beyond their comment to dispose of unused products!!! The public cannot be left hanging and to speculate if the treif is bottel (nullified) or not.
Too many complexities to answer that question from a distance. It depends on the foods but also how and with what it was prepared and served.
So assuming that the food is treif, question reduces to how you handle any post facto situation involving treif components.
In short, ask your local Orthodox Rabbi.
It’s a bakery!
What utensils did you put the chocolate danish in?
It’s a cafe and bakery with coffee, icecream, deserts, catering for functions etc. many people served their so called “pareve” tiramisu, cakes, babka etc as dessert after fleishig Shabbos meals on their Shabbos china. Not so simple.
I asked a Rav from KA yesterday and he explained that almost all end products would have been bott’l and didn’t actually have tried in them in the first place, just not products that would generally be allowed in production.
Also appears that the nature of the questionable end products, were ones that are generally eaten right away and not reheated/placed into home utensils.
Contact the new Rabbi, Rabbi Zirkind.
He is qualified to answer.
He didn’t even get there yet and has no involvement with Kosher Australia under the very reliable Rabbi Gutnick
Actually he arrived before this whole fiasco.
Asking your community rov, is actually a thing.
He doesn’t need to be involved in kashrus. He just needs to know halacha.
Why the lack of transparency? Tell us exactly what occurred, how KA failed to pick up on this until now, and what is being done to ensure this won’t happen again with any other establishment!
Kashrus organizations serve the community, and should work to protect the consumers, not the establishments who breach contracts.
There is pending litigation against Patisserie so the kosher agency may be limited by what they can publicly divulge. If you contact one of the rabbis directly they might be able to provide more info. Also, if you know the way kosher supervision works, there are certain enforcement measures which are public (like spot checks), and some which are not public. The good kosher agencies deliberately don’t publicize all of their enforcement measures so that they can maintain an element of surprise. Think of it like airport security, lehavdil, there are visible and invisible elements that the company won’t know… Read more »
If there was a violation issue; why does the warning not say so? why downplay and whitewash it and say they just decided to discontinue?
(notice the dates on each of the notices, the 2nd one is dated 18th and that’s what has been circulating for 3 days, while the 1st notice above, is dated only 2 days later, seemingly changing the whole story!)
So they don’t make themselves look bad.
on the contrary; now they look bad!
they should have come out with a clear announcement from the beginning something like “Effective immediately we are revoking our certification due to violations” or if they wanna be a little more PC they can say something like pending further investigation, hold off eating their products etc.
That would make it clear that they are strict zero tolerance kashrus agency who’s first priority is strict kashrus not a business relationship.
We are hoping for chabad to have a better kashrus agency and not rely on a mizrachi agency that uses kulos leading to a breach like this.
Ignorant of you. The rabbanim are all chabad.. as are the mashgicim.. you show yourself as a fool
1. There already is a Chabad kashrus agency in Melbourne.
2. What kulos are you talking about? KA has the same standards as other agencies if not better, that’s why people rely on them
3. Even the strictest hechsherim have breaches. Remember the OK Chinese restaurant scandal?
It’s a bit much to assume the reason for this situation is because the office is located in Mizrachi Melbourne. At the end of the day, the majority of KA’s workers/mashgiachs are Chabad. There’s no need to blame one group or the other. Even the most stringent hechsher in the world can miss something like this, and that’s simply due to human error.
Anyone familiar with Kashrus knows that while something may be permitted b’dieved through bitul, once you become aware of the issue it is treated as lechatchila and you have to be stringent. I asked a Rav, and he told me that this was the simple reason people were told to discard the products. That being said, spreading unnecessary details just for the sake of panicking people isn’t the way things are usually done. If you look at how the OU or CRC handle these matters, their notices are generally brief. They usually just name the establishment and state that it… Read more »
The bakery deliberately went behind people’s backs to break the kosher rules and knew what they were doing was wrong. Why aren’t they being charged with fraud, maybe even a hate crime. I heard one of the owners recently started dating a Muslim and was very antagonistic towards Jews. Antisemitic sabotage?
Was the best place in town to eat 🙁
Kashrus orgs can only do so much, no matter how vigilant. The bigger question is on the owners. I never trusted the owners. Something was always off to me. (Allegedly the woman owner is dating a Muslim?). I wonder how much of this is intentional? There are bad stories circulating, no need to mention here. People who are concerned about kashrus should probably only go to eateries where the operators are heimish.
I think the Kosher
” I wonder how much of this is intentional?”
Secretly using treif ingredients is intentional.
And what about the Monsey scandal with a frum operator selling actual trief meat?
Bottom line – scammers will be scammers and will find ways to circumvent even the tightest Kashrus protocols, even if there’s a Mashgiach Temidi standing in the restaurant all day…
Your defamation attempt is totally inaccurate. While I am one of many who totally understand that even the most reliable and respected Kashrut agencies can fall victim to unscrupulous licensees, if you are going to malign an agency in such circumstances, please be honest and get you facts right. It is common knowledge that the vast, vast majority of the Rabbonim and administrative staff of Kosher Australia are members of Chabad. To therefore malign the Mizrachi Melbourne movement, that supports their work financially and practically, while instead champion Chabad, is simply indefensible. If anything, the Mizrachi Melbourne movement should be… Read more »
Can we say that slurpees are kosher in Melbourne based on Sydneys certification?
An Open Letter to Our Beloved Community Dear Friends, We want to take a moment to thank the incredible Melbourne community for your unwavering support over the past 7 years. It has been our greatest blessing to serve you, and we pray that when this difficult and painful episode is behind us, we will once again continue to do so at our premises. From the very beginning, our foundation has been built on the highest standards of Kashrut. Every decision we have made in our kitchen has been with the guidance of Kosher Australia. We have always only used Chalav… Read more »
This letter didn’t last long.. they deleted it from their page, go check. I saw it when it was posted and then it disappeared
This is obviously one big lie. After being caught, they’re trying to bash the Rav Hamachshir and the Kashrus Agency.
The announcement you post has been proven on local social media in Melbourne to contain false denials of wrong doing. Tĥe above post adds deceit to deceit, to the detriment of the kosher consumer. It has indeed now been taken down. It is very naive, and adding further to the damage to the kosher consumers by posting this and actually heading it with the title “too quick to judge” – as if giving it credence. Surely anyone with any understanding of cases like this would realise that the party guilty of such damaging deceit would not hesitate to attempt to… Read more »