The Beef Over Kosher Beef

It’s unnerving to read a government document describing how to properly cut a cow’s throat. But in order to understand the lawsuit between the producers of kosher meat, kosher certification agencies, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which regulates the health of food, animals, and plants, one has to face certain realities.

Since 2010, the CFIA’s guidelines for ritual slaughter—the act of killing an animal to fulfill specific religious or cultural laws—have described in detail the method of using a knife “at least twice as long as the animal’s neck width and exquisitely sharp” to skillfully result in rapid loss of consciousness. “For adult bovines, steers, and heavy calves, the continuous cut may include several fluid sliding movements of the knife without any interruption, hesitation, stabbing with the knife or lifting of the knife off the animal’s neck during the entire cut.”

To preserve religious freedoms, ritual slaughter guidelines have exempted qualified practitioners from pre-slaughter stunning. However, all other mammalian livestock must first be rendered unconscious by the method: either carried out mechanically, electrically, or by a “controlled atmospheric” system (such as gas). After this, the animal is bled, dressed (the removal of skin, head, developed mammary glands and feet), eviscerated, and split.

In 2019, this finely tuned tension between science, regulation, and tradition changed. The CFIA, citing Canada’s need to adapt to modern global standards and consumer expectations, sought to update a variety of food production rules. The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR) required cows to either be stunned after slaughter (in the event that they are not instantaneously rendered unconscious) or else subject to a series of tests to determine that the animal is unconscious and therefore not experiencing additional distress.

This is where that tension between law and religion becomes a conflict.

It would help if the Torah had at least a passing mention of post-slaughter stunning. But despite being an immortal being possessed of infinite knowledge and wisdom, God didn’t anticipate retractable stun bolts or electromagnetic radiation. Or if he did, he didn’t write it down. So it falls to various kosher certification bodies to debate whether the CFIA’s new regulations for the humane slaughtering of cows can coexist with shechita—the ritual slaughter of animals in accordance with kashrut, Jewish dietary law.

The difference is why Canada’s two main kosher certification bodies, the Jewish Community Council of Montreal (MK) and Kashruth Council of Canada (COR), along with Mehadrin and Shefa (Canada’s two main kosher meat distributors), and Rabbi Abraham Banon sued the federal government last year, arguing that the regulations infringe on their religious freedoms.

In Canada’s highly regulated food system, how do we reconcile ancient tradition with modern law? And just how far should religious freedoms extend?

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Shechita is often presented as a more humane method of killing livestock. And for thousands of years, there was no doubt of that. The single, precise severing of the throat was certainly less brutal than the more common pre-industrial tools for ending an animal’s life. But the tools for non-kosher slaughter have been updated since the days of the sledgehammer and the poleaxe.

The crux of the CFIA’s position is that the method of ritual slaughter does not guarantee the animal’s immediate loss of consciousness as dependably as stunning, and is therefore not sufficient to guarantee a lack of suffering. The plaintiffs say these new guidelines are too arduous to ensure the financial feasibility of producing kosher beef. They also debate the CFIA’s scientific reasoning, citing guidelines from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) as evidence that animals do not endure undue suffering during shechita.

“We’re pretty confident about the science that shechita results in such a massive drop in blood pressure that the animal loses consciousness almost instantaneously,” says Jean-Phillippe Groleau, lawyer for the plaintiffs.

But, “the problem with a slaughter without stunning is if you get sloppy, it goes bad really quickly,” said Temple Grandin, an authority on the humane treatment of livestock, while speaking with vegan Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz in 2018. “It requires much more attention to details of procedure than regular slaughter with stunning. You get the least bit sloppy and you can have bad stuff happening, like live cattle walking around.”

Though Grandin points out that stunning is also not infallible. People miss. Accidents happen.

The SFCR guidelines, which went into effect in 2023, did not require kosher abattoirs to stun animals before or after slaughter. Instead, the SFCR asked processors to add a series of tests to confirm that the animal is unconscious, including the absence of rhythmic breathing, the palpebral reflex (eyes rolling back when attempting to close them), and the corneal reflex (blinking in response to an object near the eye).

And while there’s no religious prohibition against these tests in kosher slaughter, there’s a financial obstruction. They slow down the production line. Court records show that Montpak, one of Canada’s major kosher meat producers, stopped performing kosher slaughter of calves in June 2023 because they could no longer maintain the pace of 70 calves per hour, a typical industry speed.

The plaintiffs argued that in 2023, when the CFIA began enforcing their new requirements, this slowed down production so much that the number of kosher capable plants dropped from six to three, resulting in a 55 percent reduction in kosher beef and 90 percent reduction in kosher veal, denying Canadians access to a food essential to their faith.

Adding two minutes to an industrial process that takes one minute would almost certainly raise costs. However, kosher food already incurs additional cost beyond Canadian standards. New kitchen equipment must be kosherized, a process of bringing tools like mixer paddles and baking sheets to a mikvah: a bath used for tevilat keilim, the immersion of vessels. Commercial kitchens must be regularly scrutinized by a mashgiach, a kosher food inspector whose duties include lighting pilot flames, ensuring that refrigerators are locked, examining raw ingredients, and the hechsherim (a certification that attests that a food item is kosher) on packaged products.

Kosher vegetables, washed with soap and inspected by a mashgiach to ensure they are free of bugs (whose presence renders greens as un-kosher as pork), are available at much higher prices. Golden Glow frozen broccoli at Toronto Kosher is about twice the price of frozen broccoli at Loblaws. Kosher feta cheese, considered cholov Yisroel (a higher level of kosher dairy than cholov stam), is available at Superstore at more than double the price.

Not every kosher ingredient costs this much more. But beef does. The kosher status of meat goes far beyond the slaughter method, requiring a menaker to follow nikkur: overseeing the butchery to guarantee the removal of nerves from the hind leg, blood vessels, glands, and forbidden fats known as chailev. Mehadrin’s kosher brisket averages $64 per kilogram. That’s 157 percent more expensive than Costco’s $26.43 per kilogram brisket.

This is why last summer, judge Guy Régimbald granted an interlocutory injunction, resulting in a temporary pause in enforcing these rules. “We are currently in close contact with the CFIA on guidelines that will address both our needs,” said Rabbi Richard Rabkin, managing director of COR, at the time.

In March of this year, a compromise by the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada seems to have resolved the matter. The Kosher and Halal Investment Program will provide just over $35 million in funding to help businesses meet the requirements of the SFCA. With $2 million available per applicant, the funds are to be used to hire efficiency experts and invest in technology that will enhance production “to meet future business conditions and consumer expectations.” That sounds like a subsidy to offset the cost of regulation, but with lots of wiggle room for producers to still claim that the SFCA is a financial burden.

“The Government of Canada heard from stakeholders that investments in slaughter establishments processing kosher and halal red meat, increased training opportunities, and marketing support would help maintain, expand, and improve the Canadian kosher and halal red meat supply chains in the medium and long term.”

But Rabkin believes that production of kosher meat has not returned to previous levels since last summer’s injunction. “Some plants have expressed general hesitancy about being in the CFIA’s crosshairs and simply want to stay away,” he says.

Judge Régimbald ruled that it was possible, without the use of the SFCR’s three indicators, to ensure that cattle are not suspended while still conscious. “The CFIA may use many other indicators, as it has done historically.”

Groleau says that a compromise can be found through other tests for consciousness, such as menace response (approaching the eye with a hand), which is different from the corneal reflex (lightly touching the eye with a cotton-tipped applicator), as requested by the CFIA.

“My clients are quite keen on proceeding with these tests,” says Groleau. “The point is to make it effective while respecting animal welfare.”

Though this case may hinge on it, it’s hard to argue for kashrut being more humane when it only focuses on how an animal is killed rather than how it’s raised.

“It’s not about how the animal is treated while it’s alive, only how it’s slaughtered,” says Carl Heinrich, co-owner of Toronto’s Richmond Station. Top Chef Canada winner Heinrich, who once worked in the kitchen of kosher restaurant Marron Bistro, practices whole animal butchery in his restaurant. “To me, what matters more is how the animal is fed, how much space it has to move around in, if it’s raised in a feedlot or how far it has to travel to get to the slaughterhouse.”

Though a special type of inspector (the shochet or bodek) does inspect cattle to approve their health after slaughter (rejecting as much as 75 percent, another labour cost for kosher beef), the protocols for kosher beef are stringent about the moment of death, yet unconcerned about the details of life.

Then there’s the question of religion. One plaintiff, shochet Rabbi Banon, argued his work wasn’t just a job—it was a sacred obligation to his community. But while Canadian courts have long struggled with where to draw the line between holy calling and commercial enterprise, in the end, animal welfare was not the focus of Régimbald’s decision. Instead, the injunction was granted largely on the basis of irreparable harm.

“The evidence, as presented, demonstrates a potential for irreparable harm that cannot be adequately compensated with damages,” reads Régimbald’s decision, which includes potential harm to Canada’s charter. “Moreover, irreparable harm has been demonstrated in the context of an impact on minority language communities (and their culture).”

The conversation over ritual slaughter is not unique to Canada or kashrut. And while many countries have continued to allow the ritual slaughter of kosher and halal meat, in recent decades, some governments—Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Slovenia—have mandated that all animals be stunned before slaughter. Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s former minister for agriculture and food, put it bluntly: “Animal rights come before religion.”

The UK had this debate ten years ago, when the British Veterinary Association argued for the pre-slaughter stunning of all animals. But today, ritual slaughter is still exempted in the UK, and the additional checks for signs of unconsciousness are not extensive.

In 2020, a Belgian court decree stated that EU members may impose a requirement for precut stunning, even for ritual slaughter. This was followed by an advisory opinion arguing that the decree was unlawful.

Though animal welfare is at the forefront of this conversation, there should be no pretence that this is purely about concern for cows. It’s hard to ignore that the law in Belgium was supported by “an odd mix of animal rights groups and far-right anti-Muslim politicians,” as reported by Courthouse News Service.

Canadian halal certification groups have agreed to allow for stunning to be done after the initial cut. So, the SFCR didn’t impact halal meat production the way it has kosher beef. Though the Canadian Press reported that Shaykh Omar Subedar, a spokesperson for Halal Monitoring Authority Canada, says that they stand behind the Jewish community and its legal action.

Perhaps then, the silver lining of the lawsuit is that moment of solidarity between Canadian Jews and Muslims.

It’s hard to discern the priorities of religion from those of business when they are so inextricably linked. Even the economic discussion is muddy.

In the US, there are roughly 7.5 million Jews. In Canada, there are just over 400,000. COR estimates that about 20 percent keep kosher at home. The larger US market will almost certainly pay higher prices. So it makes sense why Mehadrin, the largest kosher meat distributor in Canada, would export 30 to 40 percent of its kosher meat to the US, while also fighting to protect its profit margins in Canada as a matter of religious freedom.

This doesn’t mean that kosher food, already costly, should be expected to bear any and all price increases. But if the requirements for religious food make it prohibitively expensive to its own consumers, does incurring an additional expense constitute an infringement of religious freedom? Or should that expense, or the welfare of animals, or the affordability for its audience, incentivize more flexibility of religious practices?

While the claim of shechita being more humane than the poleaxe was certainly accurate for millennia, over the last century, its status as a best practice has been debatable. These regulations were an attempt by the CFIA to join Nordic countries in setting higher standards for animal welfare in meat production, surpassing those of the USA and the UK. Canada tried to leave the jock table and sit with the nerds.

The kosher agencies that interpret and oversee kashrut made examinations of science and the Torah to conclude that a second layer of cling wrap is sufficient to protect a bowl of kosher soup inside a non-kosher microwave. Not one, not three, but two. Similar thinking created the shabbat elevator, programmed to stop on every floor on the sabbath, so observant Jews can avoid pressing the button, which is considered work. Such negotiation between faith and science led to sabbath mode ovens and a velcro gadget that prevents a fridge light from turning on when the door is opened.

How have those analytical minds, so eager to wed technology and theology, not opened up to the possibility that methods of slaughter may have been improved in the last 4,000 years?