A Very Kosher Bankruptcy

It might be a bit more difficult to find kosher beef in your grocer's freezer these days. Agriprocessors, the kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa that had at one time been the largest supplier of kosher beef in the country, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week.

This could very well spell the end to a six-month saga that has brought headlines and arrests and fierce recrimination to the tiny Midwestern town. The story of the troubled meat processor and the fallout from a May immigration raid was told in the November issue of Conde Nast Portfolio (read "A Beef With the Rabbis").

Since then, every week seems to have brought a drumbeat of bad news for the kosher giant. In late October, the plant's top executive in Postville, Sholom Rubashkin (son of the reclusive Brooklyn owner of Agriprocessors, Aaron Rubashkin) was arrested by federal authorities on charges that he had conspired to employ illegal aliens.

The next day, a St. Louis bank sued Agriprocessors for defaulting on a $35 million loan. This came on the heels of three other lawsuits filed against the company for failure to pay a variety of debts. And last week, Agriprocessors shuttered the other meatpacking plant it operated in Gordon, Nebraska.

It's hard to tell how Agriprocessors could emerge from this scandal and bankruptcy in tact. Aaron Rubashkin, his son Sholom, and three lower level company officials are slated to stand trial for those child labor charges next April.

For now, Agriprocessors has suspended all of its production operations, causing a massive meat shortage in the kosher market. In its wake, Agriprocessors has left many still reeling from what was arguably one of the biggest scandals to hit the American meatpacking industry since the days of Upton Sinclair.

by David Levine