"We fully respect the Beth Din's high standards. As kosher consumers
ourselves, Michael and I wouldn't
want it any other way." -MANDY HAZAN
Kosher consumers were thrown into utter confusion yesterday after the Joburg Beth Din issued a 25-word kashrut alert, stating simply:
“Genesis Super Spar has been sold and therefore with immediate effect the kosher sections are no longer under the supervision of the Johannesburg Beth Din.”
READ THE ORIGINAL STORY ON MyShtetl.
So here’s the complete story...
The shop - commonly known as the ‘kosher’ Spar as it had a completely kosher downstairs section – has been bought by new owners. The store will be managed by one of the new owners, Michael Hazan and his wife Mandy.
They have huge plans to roll out over the coming weeks and months – SEE BELOW.
However, as of the time of writing, there is no Beth Din supervision of the store.
The Union of Orthodox Synagogues (UOS), the parent body under which the Beth Din falls, explained to MyShtetl today that whenever a kosher licensee sells a business, the kosher license is terminated and, in this case, “the new owners had not applied for a licence.”
New owners’ plans for the store...
The new owners have decided to move the kosher section into its own environment in the upstairs section of the store. Mike Hazan explains that Spar had done an extensive survey recently and found that many customers found the split level arrangement inconvenient.
So, on taking over on 1 August, the new owners immediately acted on this information, and he began moving everything upstairs. They have identified the space behind where the tills are presently situated for their all-kosher section.
They plan to put the kosher service departments (bakery, deli and fish shop) facing onto the same area. They are not going to have a kosher butchery in-store. “There are six successful butcheries in the area,” explains mandy Hazan. The new owners believe that they will better service their kosher customers by rather carrying the products of the retail butchers (at competitive prices) than by competing with the butchers themselves.
“A Spar on steroids...”
“Just watch us,” says Mandy Hazan, “in a few months this will be a Spar on steroids!” she says. Mandy says they have a fantastic architect, Brad Stein, who has helped them to change the shop around completely.
Mandy says that almost all of the changes are to better accommodate their kosher customers. “Just wait until you see it,” she says, “it will be a total new look and feel.” Spar are sending in a team of Category Management Specialists to assist them in stocking up complete new ranges. “This will be a flagship store,” Mandy says.
Next customer please
The present entrance will remain but the check-outs and exit will be moving around the corner. They will also be introducing a queueing for quicker service (with the "Next Customer Please" voice-over and all).
The future Genesis Spar “will be more like a department store,” and they will be adding a lot of kitchenware, a toy section and many others.
Nu? So what about downstairs?
The downstairs premises that were previously the ‘kosher’ Spar will now be revamped into a Tops bottle store and a Spar Chemist.
In the meantime, says Mandy, while they await their kosher licenses, the store will outsource all of their bakery, deli and fish products and bring them into the store already packed.
Once all the dust has settled in about three months, they say, we can expect “a complete revamp” of the store.
The Hazans have promised to keep MyShtetl.co.za users updated on the developments as they happen. We will keep passing it on to our users.
Interviewing the Hazans today was extremely disjointed. They have moved all kosher goods upstairs and they are working frantically to unpack it all again. But that wasn’t enough to stop firebrand Mandy from joking about “the Exodus at Genesis.”
Customer reaction to the upstairs/downstairs move was mixed. In fact, during MyShtetl’s hour-long visit, half of the kosher customers felt it was a good idea, while the other half didn’t.
Once the latter group read and see what the Hazans have planned for them, they too will most probably agree that these are very positive changes.
However, the million dollar question remains: What’s up with their kosher status?
What does the UOS have to say?
UOS executive director Darren Sevitz told MyShtetl today that “The Genesis Spar has been sold. Our kashrut licence agreement was with the previous owners. We were not aware of the sale to the new owners, until one day prior to the sale taking effect.”
Sevitz corrected an article on MyShtetl.co.za yesterday (now corrected) that stated that the kosher license had been “withdrawn”.
“The kashrut licence with the previous owners was ... not withdrawn, but simply terminated as a consequence of them selling the business,” Sevitz explained. “The new owners had not applied for a licence.”
Consequence, not punishment
“The termination of the kashrut license agreement, and our public notice to that effect, is therefore not a punishment, but a legal consequence of the sale of the business to a new owner who did not apply for a license.”
Sevitz says that the new owners have “now decided to apply for a licence. We have received a partial application but it is still incomplete and we are uncertain as to what exactly they want to do. We know it is different to what was done previously.”
As far as the UOS is aware, said Sevitz, “it seems their intention is not to use the downstairs section, but the previously non-kosher upstairs section.”
However, the Beth Din’s kashrut license “only applied to the downstairs section. It is therefore not a simple matter of ‘extending’ the previous license, because the upstairs section has never been inspected or approved.”
He says it would require a “complete and thorough physical inspection and the implementation of whatever controls may be necessary to ensure that there is no mix up between kosher and non-kosher on one hand, and meat, milk and parev on the other hand.”
Mandy Hazan confirmed to MyShtetl that everything will be moving upstairs. "We fully respect the Beth Din's high standards," she said. "As kosher consumers ourselves, Michael and I wouldn't want it any other way."
”Not a simple matter – we take kashrut extremely seriously”
“It is not a simple matter – we take kashrut extremely seriously and cannot rush such an application at the expense of our high kashrut standards, to the detriment of our community,” said Sevitz.
“In any event,” says Sevitz, this is all premature. “We await a complete application, so we know exactly what they want to do, and exactly who the partners and licensees are."
"In the meantime," says Mandy, "we are making use of the supervised kosher facilities at Savoy Spar," They have redeployed all the existing kosher cooks from Genesis to Savoy where they "are preparing all the products with all the same recipes and ingredients that Genesis customers have grown to love," she said.
These are then pre-packed at Savoy and delivered to the Genesis store, sealed with Beth Din tape.
The kosher bakery at Savoy Spar, which is managed by Arnie Kaufman (of Kaufie's fame), will be doubling its production and packing for Genesis.
Darren Sevitz told MyShtetl today that: “Assuming it meets the approval of the Beth Din, we can then do what we do best – which is to provide world class kashrut supervision and products for our community.”
