In early 2023, an Orthodox Jewish mother sought help from the staff at the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty at a council event for women and children.
“She just said, ‘Look, I have a problem,’” David Greenfield, CEO and executive director of the Met Council, told JNS. “‘I qualify for WIC, but I can’t buy formula.’”
The woman was referring to the federal Women, Infants and Children program for low-income pregnant women and mothers. States determine which kinds of formula meet the federal nutrition requirements and are available for purchase at a discount through the program.
The problem the woman had was that she couldn’t find formula for her baby that met her kosher requirements, particularly that milk products be under special Jewish supervision, called cholov Yisroel.
It turned out, the Met Council learned, that mothers eligible for WIC were leaving stores without securing formula for their babies and children, because they couldn’t find cholov Yisroel products.
“If you ask anyone who has a baby, the two most expensive items are always formula and diapers,” Greenfield told JNS. “That really was a tremendous pain point, and that’s why we decided to focus on that.”
That focus has incubated a partnership with the office of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, and the state approved the first cholov Yisroel infant formula eligible for purchase through WIC on Wednesday, the Met Council told JNS exclusively.
The state is expected to add the formula to its WIC offerings later this month after a three-year campaign from the Met Council, Greenfield told JNS.
“It’s a small technical change, but it’s obviously going to make a very significant difference by opening this up to the lowest-income New Yorkers who struggle to make ends meet,” he said.
The change could affect “tens of thousands of families” in New York annually, particularly in Orthodox communities, including Borough Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush, Crown Heights, Far Rockaway, Monsey and Kiryas Joel, according to Greenfield.
New York’s list included more than 40 infant formulas as of early 2026. Several bore kosher certification, but none met the cholov Yisroel standard observed by many Haredi and other Orthodox Jewish families.
Cholov Yisroel refers to dairy products made under strict Orthodox Jewish supervision to ensure that the milk comes exclusively from kosher animals.
Explaining the distinction to state officials required educating them that simply including kosher-certified formulas on the WIC list did not resolve the problem for families that observe the stricter standard, according to Greenfield.
“If you’re the state department of health, it’s a little bit confusing, because you’re like, ‘Well, we’re already providing kosher,’” he told JNS. “It’s understanding that there are different levels of kosher.”
Just as the “Asian community prefers certain food,” he told government officials that “the Jewish community prefers certain food.”
“The emphasis we really emphasize is that it’s as much a cultural issue as it is a religious issue,” he told JNS. “One of the things that we try to educate government officials on is that kosher provision has standards as well. There’s a difference between a plain K versus a Triangle K versus an OK.”
“Once they understood it, they embraced this concept and the idea that this is something that is doable,” Greenfield said.
Met Council raised the issue with Hochul and senior members of her administration, who connected the organization with the state’s health department, according to Greenfield.
“I’ve worked with, I don’t know, the last half-dozen governors in New York state,” Greenfield told JNS. “I’ve never found a governor who is more personally invested in trying to help her Jewish constituents than Gov. Kathy Hochul.”
Hochul was “very receptive” to the issue, he said.
“I can’t think of a single Jewish issue that we’ve come to the governor with where she hasn’t worked very hard to try to accommodate the concerns of the community,” he said. “Even though now it’s politically unpopular to be pro-Israel, she has doubled down publicly on the support of that community.”
“She’s not Jewish, obviously, but I do think she feels it in her gut, and she is proudly supportive,” he told JNS.
The largest obstacle was a federal iron requirement. Cholov Yisroel formulas that Met Council had previously reviewed fell 0.1 milligrams short of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s minimum requirement of 1.5 milligrams.
“It’s a good example of where the government means well, but 0.1 is not going to make or break anything,” Greenfield told JNS.
Met Council did not seek an exemption from the requirement. In 2025, Hannah Lupien, the organization’s managing director of food programs, identified a cholov Yisroel formula that already met the federal standard. Met Council submitted it to the state for approval.
“We found a formula that does allow you now to meet the requirement,” Greenfield told JNS.
The approved product is manufactured by a British company. Greenfield could not immediately recall the brand or product name.
He believes the formula will be available through all WIC-authorized retailers and priced similarly to other covered formulas.
“This isn’t glamorous. It’s not going to get us into Time magazine or the New York Times,” he told JNS. “But this is the kind of work that can only be done with a dedicated team of people who are really looking at the nuances of rules and regulations.”
