Bidding To Be The Kosher Fresh Direct

Twenty thousand items are a mouse click away on the newly revamped Kosher.com, which aims to be “a one-stop for all your kosher needs.”

Twenty thousand items are a mouse click away on the newly revamped Kosher.com, which aims to be “a one-stop for all your kosher needs.”

by Julie Wiener
Associate Editor

If Brooklyn supermarket Pomegranate is the kosher Whole Foods, then newly re-launched Kosher.com is gearing up to become the kosher Fresh Direct.

The company, founded in 2000 but operating only in “beta mode” until this fall, is now selling over 20,000 kosher products and offering free delivery to Brownstone Brooklyn, Manhattan, Riverdale and parts of Bergen County. New neighborhoods will be added soon, and most items can be shipped all over the country.

“Eventually we want to expand delivery all the way from Connecticut to Philadelphia,” said Jamie Geller, Kosher.com’s chief marketing officer who, accompanied by an approximately 15-foot-tall shopping cart, was at the Kosherfest trade show last week at the Meadowlands promoting the revamped site.

“We want to be a one-stop for all your kosher needs,” said Geller, who is the author of the “Quick and Kosher” cookbook and the star of short cooking-show segments that appear on the new site.
“This is supposed to make your life easy,” she added. “The only thing we don’t do is set the table and do your dishes.”

Like most upscale supermarkets, Kosher.com (which has a logo very similar to Pomegranate’s) sells an array of prepared foods and baked goods, along with the standard supermarket fare. Like Fresh Direct, it allows consumers to save their shopping lists online and offers a database of recipes, with the ingredients just a click away.

Kosher.com also features a variety of articles about kosher cooking and links to other Jewish food sites.
Prices so far are comparable to those of other supermarkets, and Geller claims the specials beat most supermarket specials.

While hardly the only online source of kosher food — Fresh Direct has a kosher department and numerous kosher manufacturers do direct sales online — Kosher.com claims to be the only “comprehensive online kosher supermarket” at this time.

Food is delivered and shipped from the company’s warehouse in Cedarhurst, L.I.

According to Menachem Lubinsky, founder of Kosherfest and editor of KosherToday.com, online sales represent only 1 percent of overall grocery sales in the U.S., but about 5 percent of kosher grocery sales.
“It’s a tough nut to crack because you’re changing people’s habits from actually squeezing the cantaloupe,” he says.

Kosher.com has two major markets: people in remote locations who do not enjoy access to a wide variety of kosher products, and busy families in the New York area who do not have time to get to the supermarket.

“Certainly, looking down the pike five to 10 years, [online kosher grocery shopping] will be a much more significant part of the mix,” Lubinsky predicts.

Barton’s Is Back

Shortly before Passover we reported that Barton’s, the longtime producer of kosher-for-Passover candies, had gone out of business.

Fortunately, for fans of the chocolates — including the famous almond kisses packaged in colorful tins — the full Barton’s line will be back in stores this winter. A.L. Bazzini Company, the Bronx-based fruit and nut importers which also own Barracini Candy, recently purchased Barton’s.

The Barton’s candies will be produced with the “same formulas, same packaging and same kosher certification,” said Gilbert Schom, a Bazzini representative at Kosherfest last week.

“The only change is it’s in stronger hands.”

Eat Your Cookies

Despite the presence of Barton’s chocolates and other high-calorie fare — including Sheer Bliss’ decadent 16-grams-of-fat-containing chocolate-dipped pomegranate ice cream bars — healthy, natural and organic seemed to be the buzzwords this year’s Kosherfest.

Adding to the kosher health-food ranks was newcomer HomeFree and its line of allergen-free treats. Founded by Jill Robbins, a New Hampshire psychologist whose 12-year-old son has various food allergies, HomeFree (formerly called Gak’s Snacks) sells three flavors of organic, whole-grain, nut-free, egg-free, dairy-free cookies, as well as coffee cakes.

“This is not so much about cookies, but about inclusion,” Robbins said, explaining that her business grew out of “watching my child experience every social occasion from the outside,” because he could not eat the food that was served.

When she has done supermarket demonstrations, the majority of customers who buy the cookies — which come in chocolate chip, oatmeal and chocolate chocolate chip — don’t have food allergies, Robbins said, but “just want a good wholesome cookie.”

For nutritious cookies fans, another Kosherfest option was Smart Cookies, a few aisles away. Although not allergen-free, these moist organic cookies come in a variety of flavors and contain whole grains, fruits and well-disguised vegetables. While most of the flavors looked as good as they tasted, the fine-tasting Blue Monster cookies — made with blueberries and white beans — were the exact same unappetizing green hue as bread mold.

Holy Chow, a roundup of Jewish food news, appears monthly.

Signup for our weekly email newsletter here.

Check out the Jewish Week's Facebook page and become a fan! And follow the Jewish Week on Twitter: start here.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization