JInsider: 21st Century Kosher (Part 2)

by Mark Pearlman of JInsider

Kosher food has come a long way from the shtetl. Approximately 13 percent of American consumers have purposely purchased a product because it was kosher, according to a recent Mintel study. That’s impressive, considering the Jewish population of the U.S. is roughly 2 percent. So with the annual Kosherfest trade show wrapping up this week, we asked three kosher mavens to talk about the trends that have gotten us here – and where those trends will take kashrut in the 21st century.

The Kosher Boom –
and an Opportunity

Kosher just keeps on growing. Sales of kosher products rose 41 percent between 2003 and 2008 at inflation-adjusted prices and are expected to rise 23 percent from 2008 through 2013. Who are all

these people buying kosher?

According to the same Mintel study, only 14 percent of those consumers who purposefully bought kosher do so because they keep kosher. For those not observing kashrut, the most common reason for buying kosher is quality (62%), followed by general healthfulness (51%), then food safety (34%), then adherence to non-kosher religious dietary restrictions such as Hallal (10%).

Kosher has developed many positive connotations. Now the opportunity is to take these good vibes and convert them into the type of popularity enjoyed by “Organic” and “Natural.”

Ubiquitous Kosher

It has become easier than ever for many companies to make their products kosher. A good deal of the animal-based ingredients have been removed because of the concern with saturated fats, and the move towards natural and organic means that fewer of the ingredients are probelmatic. Now the producers take a look at the ingredients, the rabbis take a look at the ingredients and they say, “why not!”
As a result, almost anything that can be made kosher is becoming kosher. Whether it’s organic or natural or gluten-free – anything the general society is moving toward is also of interest to the kosher consumer and is becoming kosher. So if I had to look 20 years down the pipe, I think it will be a natural experience for anyone to walk into any store and find that most of what is on the shelves is kosher. Already today in the average supermarket a good 30 to 40 percent of what’s on the shelves is kosher.

– Menachem Lubinsky, organizer of Kosherfest and president & CEO of LUBICOM Marketing Consulting (www.lubicom.com)

Product Innovation

The development of kosher wine is a big story. As a community we used to be focused on wine for sacramental purposes, and sweet wines. But over a period of time, the Kedem wine company made changes and now we have hundreds of wines from all over the world of every texture and quality. What it shows you is that with supply and demand, sometimes we can create the demand by educating people. We also see now how popular sushi has become, which was never thought of before as a kosher food, yet lots of kosher restaurants have a sushi bar.

In the food area [the future trend] is in the whole notion of how to enhance foods – sauces, dips, salads – which always used to be a sideshow to kosher. All that will move more into the mainstream. So you’ll have the exotic Asian sauces as very much a part of the meal. Soy will become much more popular.

– Menachem Lubinsky

Big Box Kosher

I see [kosher] consumers going to big box stores. Stores like BJ’s, Costco and large markets. I see kosher consumers buying en masse, which they didn’t do 30 years ago. When I entered this business, Empire Chicken or mass market kosher product wasn’t available as it is today. In general it’s going to be harder and harder for small merchants like myself – whether it’s kosher food or just in general, you are going to see us dwindling, because the days of the box stores is more and more.

– Michael Kane, owner of Park East Kosher
Butchers (www.parkeastkosher.com)

Judaism and
the Foodie Movement

Judaism sees eating as a way to create holiness in our lives. However that gets translated in a secular vein, people are looking to make sure that eating is filled with a sense of value. In the last 20 years we have seen the effect of disregard for dietary understanding. The whole fast-food world has played on the fact that no one thought about food as a possibility for creating a sacred encounter with the world. Judaism always did.

We are coming to realize that sometimes kosher food can be ritually kosher but produced in a way that is exploitive of labor or inherently not good for you. Now, those are free market choices that people have a right to make, but we also want to be able to say that we shouldn’t be eating food that destroyed the environment because of waste from the plant.

I think that [the new socially conscious hechsher] Magen Tzedek is leading what will be seen as a vehicle for addressing a whole range of concerns in the foodie movement using kashrut as a base. This is part of something people are looking to understand – something Judaism has always understood – which is that who we are is defined by what we eat.

– Rabbi Morris Allen, leader of Hekhsher Tzedek (www.magentzedek.org)

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