This podcast was originally published on Feb. 6, 2025.
The recent announcement of a temporary 30-day pause in the Canada-United States tariff war came as a relief to this country’s largest importer of kosher foods from the U.S. Employees at the Montreal-based Altra Foods spent the earlier part of the week scrambling to rush in orders from suppliers south of the border, after Canada vowed to slap 25-percent retaliatory duties on some of the company’s 3,000 kosher imported brands, such as Sabra, Geffen, Streit’s, Hadar and Bush Beans.
But Altra’s vice president, Jack Hartstein, worries that if the negotiations collapse, and the Canadian tariffs kick in next month—just ahead of Passover—prices will rise by between 50 and 60 percent for kosher food imports from the key U.S. market.
That’s why Canada’s certifying organizations, COR and MK, and the Hasidic community have teamed up with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and several Liberal MPs to urge Ottawa to exempt kosher foods from this current trade war.
On today’s episode of The CJN Daily, we’re joined by Jack Hartstein, vice president of Altra Foods, to discuss how his company is bracing for the impact, and what to expect next. Listen above or read the transcript below.
Transcript
Ellin Bessner: And he joins me now from Montreal. Welcome to The CJN Daily.
Jack Hartstein: It’s an honour for me.
Ellin Bessner: I’m so glad you’re here because it’s probably been a super stressful few weeks, days about the tariffs. Will they? Won’t they? When we talked to set this up, the tariffs were starting on Tuesday. Now it’s Monday night and they’re not. How did you react when you saw that breaking news?
Jack Hartstein: We drank l’chaim, we celebrated, actually, because it was extremely, extremely stressful. It’s a huge responsibility that we carry by being the kosher food distributor in the country for the people that need kosher and eat kosher. And it’s an honour and a responsibility to be able to bring kosher food to the communities right across from coast to coast to coast, like our Prime Minister said. And it’s a responsibility to do it in an affordable way where people can afford to stay kosher and to eat kosher.
Ellin Bessner: While we’re in this wait-and-see mode, can you tell us and our listeners how your company’s been preparing or what steps, measures you’ve been taking to get ready for this? Because of whatever impact will be there.
Jack Hartstein: There’s only a certain amount of preparation that we could do. There was talk, yes, no, yes, no, and it just really hit us on Saturday night when we heard that it was going ahead. We have over 7,000 products, so we went about identifying which are US-made and which are actually made in other countries to which the tariffs would not apply.
Ellin Bessner: Such as, like Israel, for example.
Jack Hartstein: Right. Canada has a separate free trade agreement with Israel, and the EU as well. Of course, we bring in whatever we can from Israel for two reasons: number one, because the obvious, and number two, because the products are state of the art. They’re fine, they’re good products. We also bring in from different parts of the world. There are certain products that are sourced in Thailand, like tuna, that’s where it’s made, olives from Spain, and so on. So not every product is from the US. We identified which products come from the US, and then we tried to find out which ones tariffs would apply to in the first batch and which ones it wouldn’t be in the first batch. There is only so much you can do when you’re dealing with kosher food, because that has to be fresh. Not everything comes in cans or in bottles; a lot of it is sensitive and doesn’t have a shelf life of six months or four months. We bring it in every month or every few weeks. So we identified the products that we could, but now we had the extra pressure of Pessach coming up, and we have to supply the community with kosher food.
Ellin Bessner: So you said you went through the list of what comes from the States. We’re talking only kosher, or you also take, is it only the kosher that you’re worried about with tariffs or other things too?
Jack Hartstein: Whatever we bring from the United States. But with the other products, fine, we bring it in. But the main responsibility is people need grape juice for Kiddush, for Friday nights, for Shabbos meals, and so on. So they need the kosher food to live a kosher lifestyle. If we’re not going to have diet dressing, they’ll have different diet food dressing, but grape juice or a whole slew of other kosher products. If they’re not going to have matzah, Streit’s matzah is made in the USA, and if tariffs apply to that product, it’s devastating really for them and for us.
Ellin Bessner: I’m just making clear. This is the Canadian retaliation tariffs you’re worried about, not the ones Trump is putting on, right?
Jack Hartstein: No, no, of course. We don’t ship to the States.
Ellin Bessner: Okay. Could you tell us how many products could be on the list? Both the first stage and the second? Do you have any kind of ballpark idea?
Jack Hartstein: Over 3,000.
Ellin Bessner: That’s almost half your inventory, isn’t it? Don’t you have 7,000 products?
Jack Hartstein: Over 7,000, sure. We have Canadian-made products, we have from the whole world, but from the US, we identified over 3,000 products that were US-produced.
Ellin Bessner: Wow. So you must have had somebody working all day and night to get this ready.
Jack Hartstein: Yeah. Starting yesterday? Yes. With tariff codes and so on? Yes.
Ellin Bessner: Okay, so let’s talk about that. What did you prepare to do as of Tuesday that now is not.
Jack Hartstein: We tried to find out which ones the tariffs would apply to, which ones they would not apply to in the first batch. Not everything would have tariffs applied right off the bat on Tuesday. There were some, a large portion, that tariffs would just come into play four weeks later or had not been announced yet. So we put those aside and we started talking to suppliers. Can you produce? What can you produce for us? How fast can you produce for us? Obviously, in one day you cannot produce. But we started to see what we can do to mitigate this as much as we can.
Ellin Bessner: So what would that look like for somebody? What do you mean? To get it here sooner, to put it on the train today.
Jack Hartstein: Right. To produce it sooner for us. They don’t have. We take fresh stocks so what do they have that they can give us or can they produce in the next four weeks for us before the next tranche of the tariffs hit?
Ellin Bessner: And what was their answer? What did you hear from your suppliers?
Jack Hartstein: Some said, we can and we will help you out. And others said, we can’t. There’s just so much we can do. And obviously the products that were for next day, there was nothing we could do.
Ellin Bessner: No wonder you drank a l’chaim. How much do you think this was going to cost you? And talk about cost before we move on to Pessach.
Jack Hartstein: Look, to be honest, if it doesn’t cost us more because we couldn’t absorb it, it’s impossible to absorb 25%. Plus, we should not forget the exchange rate because of this tumult. The exchange rate moved between 10 and 15 points. So we’re talking a 40% increase in prices. It’s hard even to say it. Our inner discussions were that we would not put up any margins, any profit on this. Like usually something costs you $10, let’s say you’ll charge $12 or $20. Whatever it is, you have a margin that you have to put on to cover all your expenses and fees and shipping and whatever. Here we were not going to add anything because of this additional cost. Nevertheless, 40%. And then when it goes to retail, the retailers do add a margin on this as well. You’re talking an extra 60% or 55% or 50% for products which are expensive as it is for people with families, people with large families in many cases, or seniors or whoever eats kosher. It would be a huge expense.
Ellin Bessner: You mentioned retailers. What did you hear from the retailers when they heard about these tariffs? What did they ask you? What are they telling you?
Jack Hartstein: We talked to some of the big ones and to some of our major clients. Some of them said they’ll accept the increase, but they’ll raise prices. One of them, one major chain, said there is a procedure process for increasing prices and we will not waive our 60-day policy. We’re not going to pay you more in the next 60 days for your products, which means that we have to continue selling it for the previous price if we want to continue supplying them. So we have a choice. Either we stop shipping them, or we lose big dollars and continue to ship them. So we had inner discussions, but we didn’t have time to have major decisions or discussions. It was all very preliminary. Scrambling, a lot of scrambling.
Ellin Bessner: Did you ever consider asking if you can get this stuff here in Canada, like looking for Canadian suppliers, for example?
Jack Hartstein: Yes, of course. And we’re always on the lookout to try to get local if we can. The problem is, in order for companies to produce kosher food in Canada, a higher level of kosher, I mean, with special certifications, we do not have the market in order to have special productions. The only way we can get productions is if we can ship it to the U.S. or sell it to other markets. And that, of course, is now out of the question because prices are going up 25% for what they import. So that very quickly was put aside.
Ellin Bessner: The list for the first one would have been orange juice, peanut butter, wine, spirits, beer, coffee, and then all kinds of other things, cosmetics and, you know, footwear and motorcycles, which aren’t. Okay, I don’t have the whole list. So dried fruits and nuts, grape juice.
Jack Hartstein: So dried fruits and nuts, too. Grape juice was not on the list.
Ellin Bessner: Actually, we found out afterwards, 21 days later it’s going to be fruits and vegetables, beef, pork, dairy, and a bunch of other things which don’t affect you. So beef. Let’s talk about imported meat. I know Montreal has a little bit of a different thing, but Mehadrin and Shefa, they get a lot of meat from Mexico and from the United States. So how is that going to work? You don’t distribute beef, right?
Jack Hartstein: No, not really.
Ellin Bessner: Dairy es, though, right?
Jack Hartstein: Dairy, yes. Yes, limited. But even the beef, it would hurt everyone because a large part of their production goes to the U.S. and if they lose that market, they’re gonna have to charge more in Canada because that’s part of their profit.
Ellin Bessner: Okay, so we’re talking about that. You dodged a bullet for now. Can we talk about Passover? Because obviously people have put their orders in for Passover even now or before, right?
Jack Hartstein: Not our customers. We have our orders in, and we have merchandise coming in already. Our customers have not placed Passover orders yet. That only starts in a few weeks.
Ellin Bessner: So if the tariffs would have come in or do still come in, how is Passover going to look for you?
Jack Hartstein: It’s a huge challenge any time they come in. But for Passover, we do have some products in already, but from the U.S. because it’s close. Those products have not come in yet. Some of it isn’t even ready yet. I guess we would bring in whatever we can. It would involve a lot of logistical headaches and nightmares. And what do we do the day after?
Ellin Bessner: What does that mean?
Jack Hartstein: After Passover? We supply kosher Chol HaMoed.
Ellin Bessner: Don’t Passover products have an exemption, though?
Jack Hartstein: Usually known for duty, but not for tariff. We looked into that as well. Not for tariffs.
Ellin Bessner: All right. What about government intervention or CIJA or the MK or something like that? Have you heard if there’s any lobbying going on to remove Jewish products from this war?
Jack Hartstein: We started some discussions on our own, but it was very, very preliminary and too short to get anywhere past the start line. So that doesn’t happen in a day.
Ellin Bessner: So this would be with federal MPs, perhaps?
Jack Hartstein: Yes.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, correct.
Jack Hartstein: This isn’t a political discussion, but I blame this whole thing on our outgoing Prime Minister because of the way he treated Trump the last time around. Actually, we had a funny discussion amongst ourselves and we said, even with all what’s going on, if we were Americans, would we still vote for Trump or would we not vote for Trump because of what he did, what he’s doing now? The consensus around the table, I have to tell you, was we would still vote for Trump no matter what, because of what he’s doing on the other side, how he is for Israel. So it’s not a political discussion. But at the end of the day, you take him with his faults and with his meshugas. But at the end of the day, as Jews, we have to look at what’s good for the Jews and for Israel and for our brothers. And here in Canada, when we’re dealing, you’re saying if we’re talking with MPs, yes, we try talking to MPs, but MPs, what? Jewish MPs have a word with the Prime Minister, but I don’t know. The Jewish people here in Canada have the stigma that the Liberals are good to the Jews and are the party of the Jews. I don’t know where we got into that.
Ellin Bessner: I hear you, but I want to just quickly end. On what steps in your office are you going to be taking? Are you still going to have people get stuff here early? Because that’s going to cost you trucks and drivers and money. You’re going to have to spend money anyway. Right? I just want to make sure. Or are you just waiting and seeing?
Jack Hartstein: No, we’re going to do whatever we can to mitigate the risk and to try to bring whatever we can for Passover as soon as possible. We’ll hurry it up and we’ll try to identify which products could get hit first, to bring those in first. We’re going to continue to be proactive. But thank God that it’s not like a sword over our heads right here and there with no time to react.
Ellin Bessner: Do you think that this is going to go away and it’ll just be a bad nightmare? Or, like, what do you want?
Jack Hartstein: We have to get ready. We have to do whatever we can. Obviously, if ever it comes, if it wakes up again in 30 days, we have to try to be as ready as we can. Like I said, not that we could be ready enough, but my personal belief is that in 30 days, Trudeau is going to be closer to retirement. And I think Trump is going to realize that I’ve punished him enough and I don’t need to do anything for Canada now. I’m going to wait for the next Prime Minister, whoever it is, and if it’s someone who he can work with and who he respects, I think we’ll stop hearing about this 51st state story and he’ll start saying he wants Israel for a 51st state.
Ellin Bessner: Maybe that would be a story. You’ve been through this before, though. I know. In 2018, you spoke to the CJN, and they had tariffs. July 1, it was 10%, though much limited. It wasn’t 25%. But was on an
Jack Hartstein: extremely limited amount of products. And at the time, 10%, we ate it up. We didn’t pass it along at the time, but with 25% and 10% exchange on top of that, it’s impossible to swallow it yourself. And we knew that was temporary. We didn’t know how long it was going to last. Lasted longer than we expected. So we made the conscientious decision that we’ll eat it. We thought it was going to be two, three months. It ended up being much longer, but we ate that.
Ellin Bessner: Is there anything you would like our listeners to know? I’m sure they’re listening very carefully because they’re very worried about even like restaurants, kosher restaurants here in our city have been putting stuff on social media that they’re worried, you know where they’re going to get their stuff. And Pessach.
Jack Hartstein: All I can say is we have to remember that the one who is the captain of the boat is not Trump. It’s not Trudeau. It’s the one above. It’s a message. And we have to pray and of course we have to do whatever we have to do. But we always have to think and pray and not take things for granted and note that there’s someone up there who’s looking out for our welfare.
Ellin Bessner: And I guess we’re going to have a different kind of menu coming forward. Local products by Ontarians.
Jack Hartstein: But look, whatever is good for the community is good for us. I’m a consumer as well.
Ellin Bessner: All right. Thank you so much for being on The CJN Daily. We’ll be in touch again.
Jack Hartstein: Let’s hope under different circumstances.
Ellin Bessner: Thanks.
Related links
- Read the list of U.S. products slated for Canadian-imposed 25-percent import tariffs.
- Why the 2025 proposed Canadian import tariffs will be much worse for kosher food consumers than the previous 2018 trade war, in The CJN
- Learn more about Altra Foods.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Dov Beck-Levine
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