Comments on: Roslindale Village Market Ignores Passover

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:39:04 +0000

Quite a lot of Kosher food is sold to people who don't care or even realize that it's kosher. A quick perusal of the foods at my desk include 2 different kosher candies, 2 different kosher snack bars, and 2 kosher bottles of water(!). (And only one thing that's not marked kosher---another bottle of water.) I know that people with dairy allergies use the kosher labeling to quickly check that a food has no dairy ingredients. Similarly, vegetarians sometimes use the labeling to be sure that no meat products are included as ingredients.

Even assuming that the spending on kosher foods does not include produce or other foods that are inherently kosher, I would not be surprised to learn that a high percentage of the food bought in the US is kosher simply because it's good business for food manufacturers to have their products certified.

On the other hand, I would be very surprised if 40% of kosher food sales were Passover related. 40% of Manichevitz's sales---that I would believe.

By: agerard

agerard — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:07:19 +0000

Then the average American Jew spends more than $30,000 annually on kosher food. Seems doubtful. Even if only 50% of kosher food sales are to Jews, that’s still $20K per person per year.

Hmm? I have about $3,500 a month budgeted towards Kosher foods. Seems I'm a little above average. Or maybe I need to find a cheaper kosher mart. But seriously, how else am I supposed to get my recommended daily value of fiber without eating 5 boxes of matzo a day?! If you have a better solution I'd certainly like to hear it!

By: Steve Laniel

Steve Laniel — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 13:55:33 +0000

Yeah, $250 billion is certainly too high. U.S. GDP is about 12 trillion. I doubt that 2% of our GDP is spent on kosher foods. There are about 6 million Jews in the U.S.. Suppose that 75% of kosher food sales are to Jews (may or may not be a high estimate; it allows for sales of, say, Hebrew National hot dogs to goyim). Then the average American Jew spends more than $30,000 annually on kosher food. Seems doubtful. Even if only 50% of kosher food sales are to Jews, that's still $20K per person per year.

By: Rhea

Rhea — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 13:08:38 +0000

I think it’s just plain rude not to stock kosher for Passover products. I mean, you have to have some way of eating your shrimp on Passover!

By: adam

adam — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 23:17:36 +0000

Sometimes where facts don't exist, you just need to make them up.

Actually, source.

By: joe

joe — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 22:54:58 +0000

Even better than that is stores which do carry matzah, but only carry boxes that state on them "NOT FOR PASSOVER USE"....

... of course, I don't particularly understand why these boxes even exists, but that's another discussion entirely.

By: Steve Laniel

Steve Laniel — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:55:48 +0000

The overall U.S. Kosher market is over $35 billion annually.

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