When I passed by the challah section of my local grocery store on Sunday and saw the shelves overflowing with Zomick’s Bakery products, I couldn’t help but wonder if sales have been affected by the reports of failed inspections and vermin at Zomick’s, a major challah supplier in the New York area.

Clearly, Zomick’s is concerned.

The company issued another statement on Monday — the second since Patch broke the story on July 12 about vermin — underscoring the commitment to cleanliness at the company.

It hired in an in-house senior food safety expert to regularly monitor protocols and assure the utmost cleanliness of the bakery, retained a noted food safety expert as a consultant to assist its in-house staff, invited yet another 3rd party audit to further reassure the public, and opened the bakery to media and others who wish to see for themselves “our exceptionally clean bakery.”

Uriel Heilman is JTA’s managing editor, responsible for coordinating JTA’s editorial team. He re-joined JTA in 2007 after a stint doing independent reporting in Israel and the Arab world. Before that, he served as New York bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post. An award-winning journalist, he has served as JTA’s news editor and worked as a reporter for a variety of publications in the United States and in Israel.