Firm fined for calling flour kosher

A Toronto-area flour company has been ordered to pay $25,000 for misrepresenting a cake mix as kosher, after an Ontario court said the move could cause “spiritual trauma” to consumers who bought the product for religious reasons.

A small-claims court found this month that Adee Flour Mills breached its contract with the Kashruth Council of Canada, one of the country’s biggest kosher certification agencies, by misusing its logo on a devil’s food cake mix that was not, in fact, certified as kosher. Deputy Judge Lai-King Hum ordered the Mississauga company to pay the council $20,000 for the harm it caused to the council’s reputation plus $5,000 in punitive damages for potential harm to consumers.

“Since the products that are not authorized to be kosher certified are sold to unsuspecting consumers who adhere to a kosher diet for religious reasons, the failure to adhere to a kosher diet could foreseeably result in spiritual trauma,” the decision said.

The judge did not, however, order the company to stop selling the products and pull them from stores, saying such orders are outside the small-claims court’s jurisdiction.

Richard Rabkin, the Kashruth Council’s managing director, said the organization has reached out to others in the kosher community to alert them of the issue with the product. The document shows Adee was granted kosher certification in May 2016, but it was revoked more than a year later after the company failed to pay the annual certification fee.