tootsie rolls kosher ...
over rosh hashanna we found out that tootsie rolls will soon bear the ou symbol
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queenscook
Aug 22, 2010 08:25 PM
I know they've been kosher for quite a while now, but I happened to be in a Target today in the candy aisle, so I finally picked up a bag. Opened it when I got back to the car. First of all, I was quite underwhelmed; they are really nothing special at all. And after I had a couple, I took a closer look at the nutrition label; I was surprised to see that a serving (of six "midgees") has one gram of transfat. I really thought that except for a few products that need the fat to keep things solid at room temperature (like frostings and margarine), it is rare to find transfats in foods these days.
They just aren't good enough to justify eating them, but I'm not sure what I should do with the rest of the bag. Give them to unsuspecting kids in shul, maybe?! Halloween? Throw the whole bag out? We'll see.
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re: koshergourmetmart
I have to admit, as a non-Jew, I read posts about things like tootsie rolls being certified, or the opening of a kosher Subway, or other national/international products going kosher with much fascination. I've been following this thread for quite a while and I keep thinking to myself, "Someone is bound to be very disappointed when they can finally have tootsie rolls, because they're awful." And sure enough, I chuckled a bit to read queenscook's post.
I understand the excitement of something you remember fondly from childhood, or something untouchable for you, but really, it's not all that great on the non-kosher side of the table. ;-) I used to work for a predominantly Israeli company, and quite a few of my coworkers kept kosher, and I was very good friends with some of them. One of them lamented to me one day about the fast food (maybe McDonalds?) I was eating in the lunch room. She missed it from when she lived in Israel, and it had been years since she had it. I told her that I'd probably miss it if I hadn't had it in years and there was no way of my having any, but it's not as good as your memory thinks it is. Not to mention all the money she saved bringing her own lunch every day. I was too lazy to do that very often.
Enjoy what may be the first tootsie roll for many of you. I hope you don't find them as disappointing as queenscook or i do. :)
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Its OU!
On November 7th, there will be a Kashrus seminar in Passaic. One of the topics is:
How Tootsie Roll became OU certified.
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re: koshergourmetmart
Do you mean that a person can buy the midgies now even without the heckser and they are under ou supervision. (kind of like with Trix, a person could buy them even without the hecksers, or so we were told) as they were under supervision, but the packaging was still old , i.e. pre-OU markings
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re: koshergourmetmart
That's very irresponsible of you, koshergourmetmart.
You were probably told that current production is kosher, under the OU. How can it be that anyone can go to any store and buy midgies, which may have been sitting inn the store for 6 months from old, non-supervised production, and assume it is kosher?
Please...
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re: hanistor
Actually, the person at the OU should have been more responsible too and told koshergourmetmart that one can not just go into any store and buy what's on the shelf. Usually the official OU policy is that it must have the OU on the individual package to be certain that it is certified by the OU. I'm really surprised that the person at the booth wasn't more specific. I guess most of us will have to wait a bit longer.
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re: hanistor
Hanistor- I don't think it's irresponsible at all- I was actually at kosherfest myself and forgot to ask the same question. I remember years ago when M&M's became OU certified, the OU specifically told the public that you COULD buy any M&M product with or without an OU. That applied to all flavors. I was in high school at the time and vividly remember all these kids eating the M&M's without hechshers and I called the OU and they confirmed an OU was not required. The same thing happened with Starbucks Liqueur last year - it did not require an OU. So if that's what koshergourmetmart was told, it's more than likely true and you shouldn't berate him (or her) for informing us of this.
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re: latke
I am just reporting on what I found out at kosherfest. It is up to you to follow this opinion or not. My question was can I buy tootsie rolls now, and they said yes. I believe the hold up is that they are waiting for new packaging and that can take a while. Jelly Belly also was OU kosher for a while with the old KO hasgacha. Jelly Belly was waiting for their old packaging to be used up.
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re: koshergourmetmart
It's possible that the midgies have always been made from kosher ingredients, on a line where none of the other candies produced contain non-kosher ingredients. In that case, the OU might say that all midgies (with hechsher on the packaging or not) were fine, which is what I'm assuming happened with the M&M's back in the day.
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re: GilaB
Midgees contain the same ingredients as the large tootsie rolls, albeit in a smaller size. If midgees were always kosher, so were the regular tootsie rolls, and that's not the case. Midgees may be kosher "already" because the plant that produces them (as opposed to the regular version) is the first one to be under supervision.
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re: koshergourmetmart
jelly belly at least had a hecsher on it. concord confections which is owned by the tootsie family had dropped their certification about 2 years ago because tootsie bought then and made the dumb mistake of dropping their kosher cert. even the people in the company couldn't understand that logic. now concord is back under the o-u but they haven't started using the new packaging yet and my compnay is refraining from taking in goods until they have the o -u packaging. the same is with topp's lolly's and candies. most kosher distributor will not waste time ordering product with kosher logos on it as many of the local vaad rabbi's will not allow it in the stores and it just creates alot of confusion
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This is from the OK...
Royal Candy Company of Brooklyn, NY has been distributing tootsie roll midgies, vanilla caramels, and other soft candies with an unauthorized OK symbol. Only hard candies are certified by OK Kosher Certification. Corrective measures are being taken.
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re: WillieWillie
kosher today reports
Although there is yet to be a formal announcement, sources told KosherToday that Tootsie Roll and Gatorade will be the next icon food brands to acquire a major kosher symbol. For kosher consumers, such news has become less frequent than in the 90’s and early 2000’s when many major brands made the move. They included Nabisco’s Oreos, Keebler, Entenmann’s and other national brands that kosher consumers had considered “forbidden fruits.” More recent members of the club include Topp’s Bazooka and Jelly Belly. Tootsie Roll, a Chicago-based company, has grown to become one of the country's largest candy companies, with operations throughout North America and with distribution channels in more than 75 countries. Gatorade is a brand of flavored non-carbonated sports drinks manufactured by the Quaker Oats Company, now a division of PepsiCo. Pepsi’s competitor PowerAde, owned by the Coca-Cola Co., has OU certification. Kosher sources explain that news of a major brand going kosher is rare these days “since most of them already have a major kosher symbol.” One certification agency told Kosher Today: “We are rapidly approaching the day when every major US food brand that can be kosher certified will be kosher.”
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tootsie roll is owned by the gordon family-who are jewish. 2-3 years ago they bought concord confections and proceeded to drop the o-u certification.people in the trade were amazed in an era when natinal companies r adding kosher cert. that someone would actually drop their kosher. about 4 months ago i was contacted and i confiremd w/ the o-u that concord will again be kosher and lablelled as such as they get into newly printed packaging. until that time i don't think any kosher dist. will get involved that being the case there can always be a possibility of tootsie getting certified
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?? kosher supervision is meant to ensure that a food is kosher, but that does not mean that something not supervised is not kosher, however there is the possibility. this op is saying that tootsie rolls will soon be supervised and therefore known to be kosher. hope that helps
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Here's what I received today from the Tootsie Rolls company in response to my inquiry:
"Kosher certification is under consideration at the present time."›8 Replies-
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re: tamarw
I believe it's our old foe, Mr. Unkosher Gelatin at work.
Here is the ingredient list
http://www2.kelloggs.com/ServeImage.a... -
re: tamarw
This important issue has long been a goal of mine . Mr. Unkosher Gelatin only makes an appearance in the frosted varieties; Vallevin's link is to PT Splitz, which are partially frosted. The unfrosted versions list no obvious problematic ingredients. Over the years, I have tried to orchestrate letter/e-mail writing campaigns to Kellogg's. Maybe the thing to do would be to petition the OU, which certified Eggos a few years back. The resistance may be due to a reticence to have some flavors and not others certified, as opposed to Eggos, which are all certified (surely production could be kept separate). However, I think we could be counted on to know which is which. It would be easier than tracking the ever-moving Slurpee list! Write to Kellogg's! Write to the OU! Write to your senator!
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re: tamarw
There is a brand of "pop tart" like products in many flavors that are kosher. Some are even frosted. They are even organic. I buy them at Fairway. I will post the name as soon as I get some more we don't have any in the house right now and I am having one of those senior moments juniors sometimes get. (-:
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re: mommysmazal
queenscook
Sep 22, 2009 08:04 PM
The brand is Nature's Path. Search "Kosher Organic Toaster Pastries at Costco" on this board for a thread on this brand. (I don't know how to do a clickable link.)
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re: queenscook
tamarw
Sep 22, 2009 09:29 PM
Thanks, found it here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/555279
I find it highly ironic that one of the commenters mentioned there that Tootsie Rolls are becoming OU in that specific discussion. That was TOTALLY unplanned! :)
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azcohen
Sep 21, 2009 10:56 AM
I know someone very high up in a national kasrut organization, and he went personally to see about getting Tootise Rolls a haskacha, and he said that it would not happen because the company would not change a key ingredient. That was two years ago.
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