Kosher supervisors start using in-house lab to check food for bugs

Kashrut supervisors from the Manchester Beth Din have begun using their in-house laboratory to launch a bug-busting service to the public.

The lab enables the close-up inspection of food items that may contain bugs, with the service already being made available to the Beth Din’s licensees including restaurants, takeaways, bakeries, and care homes.

This week they announced the service’s extension so members of the public too can have items checked for infestation free of charge using the lab’s digital microscope, which provides up to 1000x magnification.

Rabbi Yossi Lock, a mashgiach at Manchester Beth Din, said: “Food items such as rice, flour, barley, beans and other vegetables, edible plants and herbs may have infestation which is not clearly visible to the naked eye.

“Our lab gives us the scope to analyse things closer. It means we can be certain as to whether items are free of infestation and are therefore permitted for use, whether there is a problem and we can get the bugs out, or whether the infestation is too great to be removed.”

He said the lab “keeps us at the forefront of kashrus inspection and supervision in our licensed premises, and to determine what can and cannot be used”.