THE COST OF HASHGACHA

We were sitting around schmoozing the other day, when we asked a friend who owns a kosher food business for his take on the Monsey scandal. We commented to him that we find it strange that almost every local vaad allows the owner of a kosher business (if he is shomer shabbat) to be his own maghgiach and therefore allow the vaad to supply yotzei v’nichnas supervision (a mashgiach who comes and goes).

Our friend agreed that it was somewhat of a problematic standard based on two matters of Halacha: The first is that a person does not issue testimony against himself to his detriment. The second is that the owner clearly has an interest in being liberal with himself in order to “protect” the business.

We agreed that in the best of all worlds, every kosher meat store would have a full time mashgiach. So, having agreed, we figured low and came to the conclustion that it would cost at least $40,000 per year to hire a full time mashgiach. At that rate, our friend took pen in hand, went to the calculator and after some time said that his place would have to raise prices another 20% to cover the extra cost. Ok, let’s assume that he was high. Let’s knock it down to only 12%. That would mean that the average cost of a pound of pastrami, for example, would rise from $17 per pound (NYC) to $19.04 per pound. No matter how you slice it, that is a hefty increase. And if our friend is correct, and it is actually 20%, the cost would be over $20 per pound!

Frankly, we do not know what the solution is. We do not like the current system as it is far too fertile a breeding ground for scandal. Yet, the increased costs could prove to be so onerous that some people might, God forbid, decide not to eat kosher and that would be a horrible thing!

Anybody got an good ideas? Frankly, we are fresh out. We want to know that we are buying kosher goods. We are willing to pay the cost of proper supervision, but how do we stay within the parameters of being affordable?
Help!!