ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010005
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LINDA SHRIEVES ORLANDO SENTINEL
Quick! Can you name the fastest growing ethnic foods in American grocery stores?
Sure, you rattled off Mexican, Italian and Chinese foods. But did you mention kosher?
That's right, kosher.
Americans are in the midst of a kosher explosion - as the number of kosher products on supermarket shelves grows 12 percent to 15 percent each year.
Only a decade ago, consumers looking for kosher products headed for a specialty section in their supermarket - or to a specialty deli. Today, they can find kosher products in most supermarket aisles.
The mushrooming market is illustrated by the number of packaged food products available. There are now 33,000 kosher products on the market, being manufactured by 7,900 different companies. In 1977, by contrast, 412 companies were producing a total of 1,000 kosher products.
The kosher explosion began in the early 1980s - in part because consumers have less confidence in food manufacturers, said Menachem Lubinsky, president of Integrated Marketing Communications, a New York firm that tracks the kosher food industry.
``In the food industry, you don't have a Good Housekeeping symbol,'' Lubinsky said. ``So people are groping for something that will assure them of quality. They frequently replace the word kosher for quality.''
Think not? Consider the case of kosher hot dogs. Many non-Jews buy them because they believe kosher hot dogs contain better quality meat than non-kosher dogs. And some supermarkets now carry kosher chickens, which have found a following among many consumers because the chickens are farm-raised and are not given growth hormones or steroids.
If you haven't noticed the kosher explosion, you're not alone. You may not be in the habit of checking your canned and packaged groceries for the small circled U or K symbol that signifies a kosher product. (Each rabbinical association has a distinct symbol, but most of the well-known certifying organizations incorporate a U or K in their symbol.)
Wander down the average supermarket aisle, however, and you'll probably be surprised at the products now deemed kosher.
Coca-Cola is now kosher. Jell-O is too. So is Maxwell House Coffee, Dannon Yogurt and Coors beer. Even M&Ms are now kosher, a blessing to Jewish chocoholics.
Why are so many food manufacturers undergoing rabbinical inspections and the necessary paperwork to get their products deemed kosher? Because in certain parts of the country, the Northeast, for example, Jews make up a significant share of the market.
But there's a growing non-Jewish population eating kosher foods. Some religious groups, such as Muslims and Seventh-Day Adventists, are turning to kosher foods because their faith prohibits certain foods, such as pork.
In addition, people who are lactose intolerant are turning to kosher foods because kosher food that contains dairy products is marked with the letter D. That's because observant Jews must wait three to six hours after eating meat before they can consume a dairy product.
Vegans - who don't eat animal products, including dairy foods - look for the kosher ``pareve'' designation. That signals that a packaged food has no dairy and no meat.
For vegans, the pareve label can be particularly crucial. That's because many products that seem to be free of animal products may contain gelatins and emulsifiers made from rendered animal fat. Those products can't earn the kosher designation, let alone pareve, which indicates the absence of meat products.
For many food manufacturers - those whose products don't use meat - kosher inspection involves periodic inspections by a rabbi and turning in a list of product ingredients, which is then checked to make sure all the ingredients are deemed kosher.
But meat inspection is much more intensive. A Jewish inspector (mashgiach) is on site to carefully supervise the slaughter of the animals and to inspect the carcass for any sign of disease or abnormality. Rabbinical inspectors also ensure that the animal is killed humanely (with one clean slit to the throat) and that the blood is completely drained and cleaned from the carcass.
Following the rabbinical inspection, animals that don't meet the standards are then sold to non-kosher vendors.
Because of the careful inspection, kosher meat costs more than non-kosher meat. But consumers feel they get additional supervision that is much tougher than a federal meat inspection.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB