Seven Mile Market's plan to move into a building now occupied by Safeway got me wondering: How do you convert a grocery store from goy to Jew?
The move, which is expected to make Seven Mile the nation's largest kosher supermarket, was the subject of a story in today's Sun by Edward Gunts.
I rang up Avrom Pollak, president of Star-K Kosher Certification, and expected to hear about an elaborate kosherization process.
Turns out, it's mostly elbow grease.
Refrigerated cases and shelves simply must be cleaned so there are no traces of non-kosher foods, Pollak told me. Bakery ovens have to be heated to their highest temperature for 45 minutes to an hour. As for stainless steel kettles used for making food at the market, boiling water in them will do the trick.
Certain things will have to be tossed, such as metal trays on which something like ham-and-cheese sandwiches might have been set. That could only be kosherized by heating the tray until it glowed.
"Generally with a baking pan, that's not practical," Pollak said. "It would probably warp."
And nobody wants a warped conversion.
Hershel Boehm of Seven Mile Market. Sun photo by Kim Hairston