Honey and Kosher Gift-Giving on the Rise on the Eve of Rosh Hashanah

Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on August 24, 2010 under Kosher Gifts, Rosh Hashana | View Comments

New York…by Tova Ross, Kosher Today Features Editor…Gift-giving has become increasingly popular on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and the lead item is honey, not only those ubiquitous cute honey bear bottles, but more sophisticated and gourmet options. Good kosher wines are also a common staple in the ever-expanding holiday gift baskets. HoneyRun Winery based in Chico CA, produces a sophisticated non-sulfited wine from fruit and honey, and is kosher-certified by the OU. Honeywine flavors include Blackberry, Cranberry, Elderberry, Cherry, and Dry Mead. Savannah Bee Company Grill Honey is a wonderful present for any chef, from the amateur or professional. Formulated specifically to bring a distinctive honey flavor to be a perfect pairing to grilled foods, this honey can serve as a marinade, basting or brush-on condiment to grilled veggies, meat, and fish to add a crisp caramelizing factor and honey flavor to barbecue favorites. The product, hand-harvested at the peak of honey season, is KSA kosher certified. Sandt’s pure buckwheat honey, Grade A natural and unfiltered, is another option. More full-bodied and dark than typical mass-produced grocery store honeys, buckwheat honey is richer in iron and several antioxidant compounds than its lighter and mass-produced counterparts. Buckwheat is the strongest and darkest of all honey varieties. WeeBee Honey, produced on a small family farm split between New York and Florida, is an unadulterated and 100 percent natural raw version of honey that results in a nutritionally beneficial product, rather than a mere sweetener. WeeBee uses bees located strictly in wild locations in both states, thus producing a wildflower honey coming from wild plants, trees and grasses. Since it is unfiltered and unstrained, the honey retains all the beneficial properties that are often missing from conventional honeys, such as pollen, propolis, and honeycomb. The crop is tested every year for pesticides with a USDA lab, ensuring a pesticide-free product.  Company spokeswoman Anna Almeter said, “Being a small family farm affords us the opportunity to have quality and control over our colonies and our honey. We raise our bees organically, never using chemicals or pesticides on or near our bees. The taste and aroma is a sweet wonderful mix of wildflowers with a smooth texture.” WeeBee Honey is certified kosher by the OU. Other honey-related gifts for the yomim tovim include a large selection from innovative candy purveyors Oh, Nuts, and include a honey-filled candlestick, violin or guitar-shaped honey bottles for music lovers, Jelly Belly honey beans in an adorable honeycomb-shaped jar, and baked goods like teiglach (small pastries boiled in a honey syrup) and honey cake.

For a wider variety of delicious baked goods, Challah Connection has challahs, apple and honey cakes, and rugelach. Other Rosh Hashanah-themed treats from the company include caramel-filled chocolate “apples,” organic honey-flavored hard candies, teabags with honey stirring ticks, and apple-pie flavored protein bars. Kosher Gift Baskets offer gourmet shofar-shaped cookies dipped in dark chocolate and glazed with rock candy crystals, a sterling silver lulav set, and a cornucopia centerpiece filled with dried fruit.

Packaged Facts estimates the overall market for gift-giving in the U.S. increased 7% from $113 billion in 2007 to $121 billion in 2009. Likewise, the total market for food gift-giving in the U.S. grew from $16 billion in 2007 to $18 billion in 2009, representing a 9% increase. Packaged Facts projects that healthy growth across all food gifting channels will propel the market past $21 billion by 2014. Kosher industry sources say that gift-giving n the kosher market ahs increased by nearly 15% in the past three years.

Kosher Community Adapts to Vacationing and Gift-Giving Customers

Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on July 12, 2010 under Kosher Companies | View Comments

Liberty NY…by Staff Reporters…There was a time when the kosher community simply accepted the reality that some 300,000 New Yorkers leave the city for two months, which essentially meant also accepting the fact that they were involved in a 10-month business. This year, many kosher retailers have simply followed their customers. Kold Kuts, the Brooklyn neighborhood establishment serving burgers, deli, hot dogs, and popular Shabbos dishes like cholent and kugel, opened a satellite in South Fallsburg, NY. Another Brooklyn mainstay, Jerusalem II Pizza, has undergone a complete renovation and is open under new management this summer. The store is located on Main Street in Woodbourne, and has soup, sushi, salads, a pasta bar, and ice cream on the menu. Pomegranate, one of Brooklyn’s finest purveyors of take-home foods, has many of their prepared line of dishes available in three locations upstate: Landau’s in South Fallsburg, Crunchies, in Center 1 in Woodridge, and Dougie’s, in Woodbourne. Some New York food establishments have turned their attention to kosher camp “care packages.” Many camp care package proprietors operate year-round, sending gift baskets for holidays or for the college student who dorm far from home. All agree that their sales in the summer, traditionally the slowest time for sending gift baskets due to the lack of holidays, are boosted by the camp care package component to their businesses.

Jane Mortiz, owner of the Westport, Connecticut-based Challah Connection and The Kosher Gift Box, two online companies that deal with kosher food gift packages, commented, “Sending food care packages are the parents’ way of reaching out to their children in camp with something delicious.” Though Mortiz said the majority of her business comes from holiday gift baskets during the year or college gift baskets, the camp care package part of the business, which she began five years ago, is lucrative enough that she keeps it going. “I have a lot of grandparents who purchase the care packages,” she said. Many who patronize her business are return customers year after year, she also noted. Challah is the biggest-selling camp care package item, she said, as parents often want to acknowledge Shabbos to their campers away from home. “Many of our customers are secular or not even Jewish,” said Mortiz, “and the ones who most often get traditional items like challah or babka for their children.” Oh, Nuts, one of Brooklyn’s finest candy and sweets shops, does a brisk business in care packages during the summer season, “enough to keep our business humming during July and August,” said Ari Tahover, a spokesperson in their marketing department. Oh, Nuts offers over twenty-five different varieties of camp care packages and free shipping on these camp baskets. Tahover said they ship a couple hundred per week to camps primarily in upstate New York. Eleanor Newman of The Chocolate Emporium said much of her camp care package business is generated by virtue of being located near Camp Stone in Pennsylvania. The Challah Connection offers several “Healthy Munch” boxes that include chocolate-covered figs; trail mix; crackers with peanut butter spread; and oatmeal packets. Karen Chazan of KosherCarePackages.com said her company also offers a “No Junk in the Bunk” version of their camp care packages, all big enough to feed a bunk size of twelve campers. Still, more popular with kids are their OK-certified freshly baked cookies and brownies and blondies.