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Kosher is the New Black

By Null / December 26, 2007

The Global New Products Database, which "monitors worldwide product innovation in consumer packaged goods markets," has reported that "Kosher" was the most popular food label in the U.S. in 2007, beating out "All Natural" and "No Additives or Preservatives."

This past year, 3,984 new kosher food products and 728 kosher beverages were launched, the company reported.

The kosher marketplace has been growing 10-15 percent over the last 15-20 years, according to Rabbi Eliyahu Safran, senior rabbinic coordinator at the Orthodox Union.

Americans spend $10.5 billion annually on kosher products, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The growing demand for meat and dairy-free products has greatly contributed to the market growth for kosher products in America. Also influential has been the fact that food certified as kosher is considered Halal, or Islamically permissible. More practical than the niche kosher products that I've recently posted about, such as Exit energy drink and Simcha beer, kosher brands like Tofutti have been hugely successful in crossing over into vegetarian, vegan, and mainstream markets. Tofutti offers products ranging from dairy-free "ice cream" and "cream cheese" to vegan pizza and blintzes.

Second to "Kosher," "All Natural" appeared on 2,023 food products launched in the United States this year.

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  • By Barbara Reader 1/1/08 at 11:00 p.m. UTC

    Kosher has become a popular label, may be that some farmer believe
    that other farmers will keep products cleaner if they are going to be
    kosher.

    So I have been told by two farmgirls I have met in Kosher
    supermarkets in New York City.  On two occassions I have met
    college students who are not Jewish nor interested in Islam or anything
    of the sort, but told me that Kosher butchers are willing to pay a
    premium for cleaner and more healthy cattle, while most butchers are
    not.  That for that reason, farmers also try to give them their
    cleanest and best cattle.  She said that farmers felt the Kosher
    buyers respected their work more than the general public.  It was
    also why she was shopping in the Kosher supermarket.  She told me
    a few horror stories of farmers doing disgusting things to their
    products because the prices they were paid were, in their own opinions,
    unfairly low, but preserving the food they were selling to Kosher
    buyers in good condition because they felt their work was better valued
    and more respected by those buyers.

    These two farmgirls also felt
    the presence of the rabbis would mean people working at various
    production facilities would be less likely to purposely contaminate
    food.

    I don't know if these two individuals' comments represent
    anything beyond the views in their own small home cattle towns, but if
    they do, it would provide another reason the label is becoming popular
    among non-Jews.  

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