Kosher Chickens: From Coop to Soup
Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, Star-K Rabbinic Administrator
There is a strange but true phenomena that has resulted in our society's technologically motivated highly competitive marketplace. If a manufacturer or producer desires to remain viable and competitive, he never loses sight of the fact that successful business demands innovation, creativity and growth. Status quo in the manufacturers lexicon often means stagnation...no company wants to stagnate. In turn, the manufacturer on the move continues to innovate in an environment that encourages survival of the fittest. This compelling need to innovate, presents additional challenges when the product or products in question require kosher supervision and the rigorous demands of the kashrus supervisory agency have to be met. These axioms are very keenly felt in the production of kosher poultry where halachic ingenuity and technical advances meet and work in harmonious concert. The average kosher consumer rarely, if ever has the opportunity to see a large or a small slaughterhouse in action. In order to gain a greater appreciation of kosher poultry, Kashrus Kurrents will give its readership an inside look into the workings and standards of kosher shechita in a modern kosher poultry production facility.
Kashrus considerations are taken into account literally from coop to soup. In order to raise a quality kosher chicken, these chickens are raised on a scientifically researched, highly nutritional special diet, high in protein, low in carbohydrates. This quality diet gives the young chicken stronger, healthier skin to more easily facilitate cold feather removal in the processing plant. As we will see later in this article, hot water is never permitted to be used in processing kosher chicken until after the salting process.
Modern techniques of kosher chicken breeding addresses the problem of halachic inoculation against disease. This concern of possibly puncturing an organ or a cranium membrane during inoculation is resolved by carefully inoculating the chicks in the skin at the back of the neck. The chickens are raised until they are seven to eight weeks old, too young to lay eggs, and just right for processing. As a rule, chicken breeding is an equal opportunity enterprise; there is no discrimination made between male and female chickens.
Chickens are shipped to the processing plant in large crated trucks. Each crate holds 10-20 chickens and is tiered 10 high, 25 deep and 5 across. This translates into 20,000 chickens per trailer. These are open trailers that are subject to the elements. Although temperature extremes, either too hot or cold, are not healthy for cooped up chickens, heat and steam are worse for the chickens' well being, and in fact some die in transport. It goes without saying that the shochtim check the chickens to make sure that only live chickens are shechted. Another very important precaution, to which the mashgichim pay close attention, is making sure the chicken crates are not dropped off the truck at the unloading dock preventing nefulos, dropped chickens disqualified from shechita. For that reason, many slaughterhouses unload the crates with a forklift that prvents this problem.
Once the chickens enter the processing plant, they are then placed in the able hands of the shochtim on premises. It goes without saying that high tech robotics can never take the place of shochtim and mashgichim. What changes on the shechita line is that additional shochtim are readily added to the shechita line to compensate for the increased volume of production.
For a quality shechita to be successful it is imperative to have a staff of shochtim and mashgichim who are true yirei shomayim and experts in their field. A shochet's job requires him to be extremely sensitive to detail work, to be a master at his craft, to have the presence of mind to be as sharp as his chalef, shechita knife, to have the skill and confidence to make sure that all aspects of the "maase shechita", technical and halachic, are done properly, "k'dos uchedin" and to give care and concern that the whole operation will go smoothly and efficiently.
At large poultry processors you do not have only one shochet working on the kill floor. There are numerous shochtim at a time on line with one roving mashgiach who checks chalofim, shechita knives. Since a pegima, a nick in the chalef, will disqualify the shechita, each knife is under the constant check of the roving mashgiach plus the shochet himself who checks his chalef every few minutes.
The shochet has to make sure he is shechting a healthy, live chicken whose simanim, trachea (wind pipe) and esophagus (food pipe) are in place and are properly cut.
There are various recommended methods of holding the chickens when they are slaughtered. Reputable kosher shechitos frown on a moving line during the shechita because it tends to impede the shochet's ability to shecht properly, and therefore reliable supervisory agencies will not permit its use.
In order to maintain a quality production, shochtim shecht in one-hour-on, one-hour-off shifts keeping their reflexes and judgement at optimum levels.
After the shechita, the chickens are ready to be processed. Processing kosher chickens is a food science. In some plants chickens are first soaked in ice water to toughen the skin and give the chicken longer shelf life. No hot water is ever used for processing before salting; it would render the chickens treif. The chickens pass through the plucking machine where the rubber finger-like beaters de-feather the chicken. After plucking, the chickens are beheaded and de-footed. At this point the chickens are inspected by mashgichim at different checkpoints as the chickens' organs are being eviscerated. The mashgichim inspect for broken bones, holes, punctures and bruises. They make sure that all the organs of the chicken that are supposed to be there are there, that there are no chicken pox on the intestines, and that there are no breaks or swelling that would render the chicken treif. Any chickens that are questioned are taken off the line, placed on hooks off to the side, and are left for the Rav on premises to pasken, to decide whether the chickens are kosher or treif. Any treif chicken will be marked with a black wing clip, while the kosher chickens are send down the processing line to be kashered, soaked and salted.
One of the most innovative and ingenious methods employed in industrial kashrus today is the automated kashering processes of modern poultry plants. The halachic process of soaking and salting chicken and meat is very straight forward: ½ hour soak, 1 hour salt, 3 times rinse; what is not so simple is how does a plant logistically and expeditiously kasher up to 120,000 chickens a day? The answer is a specially designed moving soak tank where 3,000 chickens are continuously conveyed with a conveyer from beginning to end. At the end of the soak cycle, the chickens are hung, manually salted and conveyed in the plant for one hour. After three hadochos, rinses, the chickens are chilled in giant chillers to 34 degrees. At this point the chickens may be singed and are sealed with kosher wing clips, plumbes and are ready for packing.
Chickens are packaged in various forms, sizes and amounts, retail, wholesale, family packs, cut ups and cutlets. At the packaging point, a mashgiach checks for cut out pieces and to make sure that all chickens that are packed are properly clipped on every piece. The boxes are triple strapped for shipping. Of course once the chickens reach the butcher shop, the opened chickens are now under the watch of each store's Rav Hamachshir. However, if one's order comes directly from the plant, any irregularity found in the shipment should be returned for full refund.
Breaks, Tears & Irregularities
Even with the best intentions and the most intensive hashgacha, problems can arise on occasion. Although halachic questions, shailos, are tended to on a case by case basis, nevertheless, general guidelines can be outlined so that the homemaker would be aware what is or what is not a sheila.If the chicken bone is found broken with no discoloration, or slight discoloration with a jagged or fully broken bone, this break presents no kashrus problem, and we assume that the bone was broken in processing. If the broken bone has begun to re-knit itself, this break presents a problem. If there is a spot of coagulated blood without a break, the blood has to be washed away. If there is a break surrounded by an area of coagulated blood, the chicken should be shown to a Rav.
Skin tears can result in the plucking machine. If the bone is not broken but dislocated from its socket, e.g. the drumstick or the wing from the chicken's body, a Rav should be consulted. Similarly, a Rav should be consulted if there is swelling at the bottom of the drumstick, especially if there is swelling with red or green discoloration in the swelling.
It may not be evident, but there is marked difference between chickens sold as a whole chicken, or as a whole cut up chicken processed in the plant. If there is a problem with a wing of a whole chicken, the complete chicken is treif. With a cut up chicken, only that piece should be thrown away because different pieces make up the cut up tray. In a local butcher shop, the housewife should check whether the cut up comes from the same chicken or various pieces that make up the tray.
The same is true with liver and giblets that are sold with the chicken. Those parts are packaged separately in the plant and are not the livers or giblets of the chicken.
It is imperative to remove the liver pack before roasting the chicken. If the chicken is roasted with the liver in the cavity, the chicken must be brought to the Rav for a decision regarding the chicken and roaster. The liver is probably treif and must be discarded.
In certain processing plants, the necks are kashered with the whole chicken; in that case the jugular veins should be slit three times or removed, and the mokom hashechita washed off. At other facilities, where the necks are cut off, a machine clips off the mokom hashechita, and the necks are kashered separately. No splitting of the neck is necessary.
In this age of food at your fingertips, these quality kosher poultry products are designed to bring a smile to the dedicated balebusta who is concerned for her family's health, kashrus, and price, of course.