By, Robyn Rosen
1 min read
ByRobyn Rosen, Robyn Rosen
A pig carcass has been discovered hanging in a delivery lorry next to kosher meat which has been stamped by London's strictest kashrut authority.
A series of photographs published on a Charedi news website, Behadrei Haredim, shows an unwrapped pig carcass hanging in a lorry next to kosher beef with a clearly marked Kedassia stamp.
Another photograph shows the lorry parked in Stamford Hill with a man carrying one of the kosher carcasses into butcher, Super Glatt. The butcher refused to comment.
A senior rabbi, who did not want to be named, said that the incident did not pose any problems halachically because the meat is cleaned and salted after it is delivered. But he added: "Who wants that on the Shabbat table?"
David Rose, executive director of the London Board of Shechita, the largest shechitah board in the UK, said: "This does not happen with our meat. Our abattoirs do not put pig carcasses on the lorries with kosher carcasses.
"We inspect our meat when the lorries are delivered. I have spoken to a senior inspector and he has never seen anything like this with our lorries.
"I can't speak for other shechitah boards."
A statement from the Union of Hebrew Orthodox Congregations, which oversees Kedassia, said that transporting kosher with non-kosher meat saved costs.
"The Union rabbinate is aware of the delivery of both raw kosher and non-kosher carcases in the same vehicle," it said.
"This raises no halachic problems.
"The kosher meat bears two clearly identifiable kashrus seals [metal tags], and is checked by Kedassia's full time mashgichim [supervisors] upon arrival at the butchers' shops.
"The abattoir processes both kosher and non-kosher animals at different times but delivery in the same vehicle saves on considerable transport costs.
"The 'aesthetics' of the photos plays no part in the halachic permissibility of the delivery of such meat in the same vehicle."