Emotional Support Chickens, Artisan Sourdough Pizza, and More at Kosherfest

There were aisles of colorful booths, visitors toting logoed bags, and, amid the requisite tasting and schmoozing, deals being written in the key buyer’s lounge that will have products old and new making their way to stores shelves near you in the coming weeks and months.

Making its post-pandemic return with plenty of enthusiasm, Kosherfest, the annual kosher food trade show, opened at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus for a two-day run on November 9. Now in its 32nd year, this year’s show drew nearly 300 exhibitors despite COVID-related issues, with companies coming from as far away as Dubai, South Africa, China, and the Czech Republic hoping to woo customers and spur sales.

While Kosherfest 2021 was understandably smaller than in the past, there was plenty of energy on display given the large increase in kosher food sales in many markets. The show’s annual new product competition drew plenty of attention as always, its new location on the Kosherfest floor giving visitors ample opportunity to see which companies took home bragging rights in each of 15 categories. Setton Farms, a longtime Kosherfest exhibitor, snagged the top spot, with its 100% pure pistachio oil taking home the best in show award for its new salad oil.

As always, in addition to the food on display, there was plenty to see at Kosherfest, although there were more than a few empty booths, thanks to COVID. In addition to serving up steaming cups of chicken soup, the David Elliot Poultry Farm offered a lighthearted nod to the pandemic with its whimsical lineup of squishable chickens accompanied by signs declaring, “This year’s chicken shortage has been stressful for us all. Emotional support chickens. Please take one.”

Aqua e Grano, one of the show’s most popular booths, was a business born from COVID, with owner Frederick Bijou venturing into the world of sourdough when the pandemic hit. Bijou began using his sourdough as a base for a variety of artisan pizzas which he has been baking fresh at parties and events for the past year, with frozen pies debuting in the next few months. Visitors to Aqua e Grano’s booth eagerly snapped up their mushroom truffle, lemon artichoke, squash and margherita varieties and as the show’s end drew near on Wednesday afternoon, Bijou had run out of plates, a reality that didn’t seem to faze visitors at all as they helped themselves to another slice or two before moving on.

Macalicious Macarons’s story began seven and a half years ago, when then-eleventh grader Adele Zaga was intrigued by a recipe she saw on Pinterest for French macarons. While the results of her first attempt to reproduce the delicate goodies were less than stellar, she tweaked the recipe until she got it just right. Family and friends loved Zaga’s macarons so much that when she came home from camp that summer, she spent the rest of her vacation selling her confections, an effort that unofficially launched her business. When a customer reached out to Zaga during the pandemic for help with a baking activity for her daughter, she responded with a make-your-own macaron kit, simplifying the process of what is known to be a challenging culinary endeavor.

“I put it together, made up an instruction sheets, and they came out amazing, so I put it on Instagram and everyone was asking me for it,” said Zaga.

The customized kits came with step-by-step instructions, pre-measured ingredients, and a macaron template and were a huge hit with customers. Zaga recently revived the concept. Her new kits, which will hit store shelves soon, require the addition of just two egg whites, giving even novice bakers the ability to make what she describes as perfect, no-fail macarons. Her regular macarons are available nationwide in a rainbow of colors and an assortment of flavors including Twix, pecan pie, pumpkin spice, Fruity Pebbles, salted caramel, and red velvet, to name just a few.

Also drawing plenty of interest was the Natural & Kosher cheese booth whose Stuff n’ Roll mozzarella took the show’s best yogurt or cheese honors. Similar in appearance to a log of puff pastry dough, the cheese can be unrolled, stuffed, and then rerolled and used in a variety of ways.

“You can make it appetizer and fill it with the best things you like or put the whole thing into phyllo or puff pastry dough and make the best boureka in the whole world,” explained Natural & Kosher’s Smadar Shemtov.

Already on store shelves, Stuff n’ Roll joins Natural & Kosher’s brie and blue cheese as sophisticated new entries to delight kosher cheese lovers.

Yoni Schwartz of Promised Land Beverage was busy pulling drafts of kosher l’Pesach hopped cider as well as the company’s newly introduced jalapeno lime, ginger hibiscus, and lemon mint sodas while dressed in a Moshe Rabbeinu-esque costume. Originally launched in 2020 just as the pandemic struck, Promised Land’s cider didn’t have the smoothest of starts, but Schwartz said that sales were solid last year as kosher consumers were excited to have a beer substitute that they could drink on Pesach. Schwartz was at Kosherfest hoping to grow Promised Land’s reach, taking it beyond its existing Five Towns distribution with a product line that also includes sweet and dry vermouth, a market that until now has belonged only to kosher wine and liquor giant Kedem.

Refoel Sliw, kosher director for Cleanest & Greenest, was busy throughout Kosherfest educating visitors to his booth about indoor vertical farming and robotics as a means for growing produce that is completely bug-free. Currently based out of Chicago with a vertical farm built in a building that once housed a Super Target store, Cleanest & Greenest employs a three-step process to ensure a totally bug-free environment even before its greens are planted.

“We’ve had six months of hashgachas checking on us, and so far there have been zero bugs,” reported Sliw. “It is the future of the world of greens, no doubt about it, and as we speak today, there is no company in the world who has been able to get to that kind of standard.”

Cleanest & Greenest plans to expand to the East Coast and hopes to have its pesticide-free, spring mix, romaine blend, baby kale and spinach on store shelves in the area by January. Expected product life for its clamshell-packed green ranges from a week and a half to three weeks, depending on variety.

Also of interest was Ceska Whisky’s Trebitsch Czech single malt kosher whiskey, which has already won several awards even as a six-year-old whiskey. Approximately 40 percent of Tretbitsch’s consumers are women who enjoy its smooth taste with flavors of vanilla, cream candy, and tones of bitter chocolate coming through as the whiskey ages in casks made of fresh oak.

“We cut the wood and make the barrels ourselves,” explained Claudio Lio of Ceska Whisky. “Our whiskey is the first thing that goes into them.”

Ben’s Best was another Kosherfest favorite and winner of the best packaged meat award, with those who chose to be fleishigs flocking to Ben Lapin’s booth to sample the only USDA approved charcuterie. Lapin has been drawing on his experiences and travels in Europe to provide kosher consumers with serious charcuterie, his paper-thin slices providing a chance to sample authentic chorizo, bresaola, prosciutto and more.

Also worthy of note was Cary & Main’s maple crème, a condensed whipped maple spread with a distinctly Vermont vibe.

“This is a real niche product in Vermont,” said Cary & Main’s Owen Dumais. “This is a long-standing tradition that we wanted to bring to the kosher market.”

But perhaps one of the most interesting booths at Kosherfest wasn’t selling food, or even kashrus at all. Given the overlap between the worlds of kosher and halal, Circle H Certification, which offers halal supervision, is partnering with leading kashrus agencies worldwide on joint certification projects, programs, and events. The endeavor aims to offer greater market penetration on both ends, enhancing availability of both halal and kosher products and opening up new markets for both Muslims and Jews.

“There are some small variations between kosher and halal, and alcohol is a big one, but 98 percent of what we accept as kosher would be accepted as halal,” said Uri Yudewitz, vice president of business development for Circle H, which also gives halal certifications on finance, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, tourism, fashion, media and entertainment, and healthcare.

Summing up Kosherfest 2021, Yitzchak Saftlas of the Bottom Line Marketing Group and host of the Mind Your Own Business radio show on WOR said that the show demonstrated that even in a tough economic climate, the potential for business is always there.

“Anyone can always cheshbon a race to the bottom, but those people are not successful,” said Saftlas. “There are opportunities everywhere. Just show up, do your hishtadlus, and Hashem does the rest.”

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