Sunday, July 04, 2010

Factoid - Munch On It

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Kosher is the fastest-growing segment of the domestic food industry, with bigger sales than organic. One-third to one-half of the food in American supermarkets is kosher-certified, representing more than $200 billion of the country’s estimated $500 billion in annual food sales, up from $32 billion in 1993.

Given that Jews make up less than 2 percent of the population, and most of them don’t keep kosher, it’s clear that the people buying this food are mostly non-Jews.



Sue Fishkoff



P.S. But she goofs here:

The world of kosher meat took a big hit in 2008 when Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse and meat packer, in Postville, Iowa, was raided by immigration officials. The company went bankrupt, the plant’s manager was sentenced to prison for financial fraud, and the kosher meat industry has been scrambling to restore its good name ever since.


The point was that there is nothing non-kosher about his food but that his employment methods were found illegal. That, in a kosher-food story, is a slip up.



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1 comment:

rickismom said...

Obviously, even though most buyers are non-kosher eaters, the cost of kosher certification is low enough that it pays to add it, and gain that extra 2% of the population.