How did you select your rabbinical supervising agency?

This was a process that was both business and personal. When we first entered the kosher market, we needed not only a reputable kashruth agency, but also individual(s) willing to provide guidance and education so that we could do it right.

In the early 1990s, Mary Anne Jackson met with Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik, ztl, to interview with him and to explain her vision for the business. As a credible religious leader and scholar, he did not lend his family’s name to products other than to Streit’s at the time. Jackson sought to add her My Own Meal® brand to the list.

At that meeting, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik, ztl, decided that our proposed product line was important to the Jewish community and wanted to see it succeed for that reason alone. His son, Rabbi Moshe Soloveichik, would administer and supervise the day-to-day operations of the Organization of Orthodox Kashruth Supervision under the Soloveichik name. He was to follow his father’s chalachic standards, and include other respected rabbis in the agency.

We were to work with the other major kashruth agencies and include ingredients certified by them and approved by him in our My Own Meal® recipes, as well as products certified by them in our MREs. Jews in the military, institutions, at camp and traveling were to have an option never before available.

Jackson worked with the Jewish community and appreciates many individuals who helped her gain a proper education, including Kedem managers and their wives, chaplains and rabbis throughout the country, and several US Military Chaplains, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Chaplain (Col) Jacob Goldstein

Chaplain (Col) Jacob Goldstein

Our meals and the Company became a part of the community. All Jackson was asked in return for her education was to learn, do it right, and not quit. And that she did and continues to do it today.