Who doesn’t love Häagen-Dazs ice cream? It may be one of the most expensive around, but you do get what you pay for. Little else can compare. Here in the USA Häagen-Dazs ice cream carries the OU-D certification.
Häagen-Dazs in Israel has lost its official kashrut license, due to the fact that it is made with unsupervised liquid milk, instead of a powder. In Israel a product that uses unsupervised milk is not allowed to carry an official hechsher – symbol of certification – as all milk used in these products must be supervised from the time of milking onwards. There has been no recent change in the manufacturing of this ice cream, and General Mills Israel says that the ice cream has always been produced in this manner. The fact that it uses liquid milk and not milk powder is what gives it that superior taste and texture. Powdered milk seems to be more acceptable, because there is a less of a chance that it has been tampered with.
Establishments that have been found to sell or market Häagen-Dazs products are in danger of losing their Kashrut license. It must be noted that in the USA the stringency of only drinking milk, or consuming dairy products that have been supervised since milking, is less, as the majority of milk available is without supervision. In Israel, however, all milk has been supervised, so there is less reason for leniency.
The OU has said that it is NOT rescinding the kosher certification and will continue to certify Häagen-Dazs products in the US -“in line with the ruling of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein for people who are not particular about consuming only supervised milk.”
Sources:
Jpost.com
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