The Benny & Fils Mess Was Never Just About Baguettes

By Howie Silbiger

I don’t usually sit around thinking about stories after they are published. I write them, publish them and move on. The story of MK removing its certification from Benny & Fils, however, has been living rent free in my brain for a week.

The story itself was not complicated. A longtime MK certified restaurant was told to stop using a product because the status of that product had changed. The restaurant resisted. The MK issued warnings and made phone calls that went unanswered. Eventually, after 20 odd years, the MK pulled its certification.

That should have been the story.

Instead, Benny & Fils went on the attack. They called the MK’s actions “disgusting” and argued that they had been using the same product for the better part of 20 years without a problem. What they did not put front and centre in their social media posts was the actual issue. The product in question, Bridor baguettes, may still be under MK certification, but they had lost their pas Yisroel status nearly a year earlier.

In fact, the MK had released a Kosher Alert on May 16, 2025, stating that Bridor products with the MK #325 symbol were not considered pas Yisroel. Benny & Fils lost its certification on May 6, 2026. That means they had almost a full year to change the baguettes. That is not a technicality. That is not “suddenly there was a problem.” That is a restaurant being told that a product no longer met the standard required by its certifier, and then not making the change.

What surprised me was not the restaurant’s reaction, businesses defend themselves. What surprised me was the public reaction, because it exposed something ugly in our community.

First came the crackpots. The MK was accused of price fixing, mafia style corruption and every other fever dream people could come up with from behind a keyboard. Some even named specific rabbis and accused them of corruption, of acting like godfathers or of committing some mysterious crime against the community. It was ridiculous, but sadly predictable.

Putting the crazies aside, there were also people who made a fair point. The MK’s public notice should have included more detail. When a restaurant violates standards, the public should be told what standard was violated. That is not gossip, it’s not loshon hara, it’s transparency. A certifier keeps credibility by making it clear that standards matter and that ignoring those standards has consequences. By telling the public what standards were violated, it helps the public accept the decision to remove the certification, particuarly from a popular long-standing restaurant. If the MK had released a detailed statement saying that Benny & Fils violated standards and listed the standards, it would have been extremely difficult for anyone to argue. A vague statment allows room for interpretation and allowing the business owner to control the story, not only minimizes the authority of the MK, but allows the narrative to naturally sway to compassion for the company, who put themselves in the position to start with.

By owning the story, the MK could have positioned themselves as the certifier who were just enforcing standards, instead of the defender trying to catch up to a story that had already passed them.

Then there were the people who did not know the facts, did not care about the facts and probably could not spell pas Yisroel if you spotted them the first eight letters. They were just there with popcorn, memes and a good old-fashioned hatred for any kosher authority.

I have worked as a mashgiach authorized by the MK for over 30 years. It is not my main job. I am not on the MK payroll nor do I receive money or any financial incentive from them. But I have seen the MK from the inside. I have seen how MK establishments operate. I have spoken to many restaurant owners, caterers and food business owners over the years.

And here is the part some people refuse to believe; The MK is not why kosher food is expensive.

Kosher food is expensive because of butchers being greedy, bakers paying a fortune for flour, suppliers of dry goods raising their prices on a weekly basis, a shrinking kosher market which has resulted in market consolidation that have caused near monopolies, and businesses that know they have a captive market and take advantage of it.

It is expensive because prices go up constantly and because too many kosher consumers have nowhere else to go. I have heard the complaints from owners themselves, and most have told me that the MK standard is not the reason your sandwich costs too much. If anything, proper kosher certification helps keep options open. It allows restaurants to use approved generic products, when possible, instead of being trapped into buying only from expensive kosher brands. That gives establishments more flexibility, not less.

And frankly, if you have an MK in your window and follow the rules, the MK generally leaves you alone.

That is why the hatred directed at the MK and the rabbis who spend their lives making sure this city has reliable kosher food was so disturbing. People can ask questions. People can demand transparency. People can even disagree with a decision. But the jump from “I want more information” to “the rabbis are corrupt mafia bosses” is not normal. It is sick.

Which brings me to the part of this story that bothers me even more.

Benny & Fils quickly announced that it was now under KSR certification.

For a long time, I thought KSR was a good certifier that operated with a different standard than the MK. More Sefardi than Ashkenazi, perhaps, but still serious. After last week, I have lost total faith in KSR supervision.

Here is why. Any certifier that immediately takes on a restaurant that spent nearly a year ignoring its previous certifier is taking on a kashrus risk. That is not politics, it’s not personal, it’s basic common sense.

Before people start screaming, think about it for five seconds. What happens if there is a violation under KSR? What happens if the restaurant is told to change something and disagrees? Will they change it? Based on what just happened, why should the public assume they will?

A certifier’s strength is not measured by how fast it can slap its name on a restaurant after another certifier walks away. It is measured by whether the public can trust that its standards will be enforced when things get uncomfortable. Taking on a restaurant that just fought its previous certifier and got expelled from the certification for, after repeated warnings, not meeting its standards, does not build confidence, it raises questions.

And yes, I suppose this will cause the Benny & Fils representative who publicly warned me on Facebook to stay away from the restaurant “or else” to repeat the warning.

That’s fine. I wasn’t planning on going anyway.

Howie Silbiger is the host of The Howie Silbiger Show on truetalkradio.com and Political Hitman on israelnewstalkradio.com. He is the Editor in Chief of The Montreal Jewish News