I love it when someone says the solution to a complicated issue is "simple". But it's not so simple. Kashrut is different than most industries because there are two users of the supervision "product"-- the food producer and the consumer.
And it's the food producer who chooses the supervision, so kashrut agencies would need to develop characteristics that are attractive to food producers. Competition would force kashrut agencies to provide better service than their competitors, but also, in some cases, less supervision. Plus price pressures would incent agencies to cut corners.
On the other hand, the consumer is looking for quality of the supervision (i.e. that the finished product is consistently actually kosher). The only incentive in the marketplace for a kashrut agency to provide that is in order to build a good reputation among consumers.
The problem is for the average kosher consumer, it is very difficult to determine if an agency is providing adequate supervision, so they will end up generally just accepting any hashgacha. If anything, reputation among consumers will be mostly built on how often the consumer sees that "brand" of supervision.
There is (or at least until recently was) such a situation with restaurant supervisions in Brooklyn where dozens of local "heimish" kashrus agencies competed for business, and restaurants could, and would, change supervisions at will. Most confused consumers would just accept any supervision that had little Hebrew letters as their symbol.
I love it when someone says the solution to a complicated issue is "simple".
ReplyDeleteBut it's not so simple. Kashrut is different than most industries because there are two users of the supervision "product"-- the food producer and the consumer.
And it's the food producer who chooses the supervision, so kashrut agencies would need to develop characteristics that are attractive to food producers. Competition would force kashrut agencies to provide better service than their competitors, but also, in some cases, less supervision. Plus price pressures would incent agencies to cut corners.
On the other hand, the consumer is looking for quality of the supervision (i.e. that the finished product is consistently actually kosher). The only incentive in the marketplace for a kashrut agency to provide that is in order to build a good reputation among consumers.
The problem is for the average kosher consumer, it is very difficult to determine if an agency is providing adequate supervision, so they will end up generally just accepting any hashgacha. If anything, reputation among consumers will be mostly built on how often the consumer sees that "brand" of supervision.
There is (or at least until recently was) such a situation with restaurant supervisions in Brooklyn where dozens of local "heimish" kashrus agencies competed for business, and restaurants could, and would, change supervisions at will. Most confused consumers would just accept any supervision that had little Hebrew letters as their symbol.