Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on July 8, 2010 under Kosher Stores | 
South Fallsburg, NY…Pomegranate, the upscale kosher grocery in Flatbush, has found a new way to brand its products even while most of its customers are on vacation, the majority in the Catskill Mountains. In full page ads in several Anglo-Jewish newspapers, the store announced that its products would be displayed in three locations in the Catskills. At Landau’s in South Fallsburg, a Pomegranate showcase just at the entrance of the store features a full assortment of dips, salads, and cold cuts. A store official said that the Pomegranate display would soon include some of its acclaimed cuts of meat. Other Pomegranate displays are located in Crunchies in Center 1 in Woodridge and at Dougie’s in Woodbourne. For Pomegranate, the Catskills outposts allow it to make up for some of the lost business in the summer while continuing to brand the store’s upscale image. For the stores carrying the Pomegranate line, it offers them a cut from a proven seller. In Landau’s, whose Boro Park store was one of the pioneers in offering gourmet kosher foods, the Pomegranate display was virtually depleted right after the weekend. Pomegranate had pledged to replenish the showcase once a week.
Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on February 23, 2010 under Kosher Stores |
By Menachem Lubinsky
New York…Jewish newspapers are suddenly flush with full-page image ads by kosher supermarkets, health food stores, and even poultry manufacturers as many seek to imitate the extraordinary marketing success of Pomegranate, the upscale Flatbush kosher supermarket. This has almost overnight created a bonanza for cash starved Jewish weeklies who are the direct beneficiaries of the “full-page war,” as one advertising executive termed it. “They believe that the colorful ads with those gorgeous food shots have helped make the store (Pomegranate) a real success,” he said. He added that in the past just to get some of these stores to advertise at all was like “pulling teeth.” Many of the stores now stress their wide aisles, parking, and fresh meats as part of an image campaign that is vintage Pomegranate. There are photos of owners and butchers, all in an effort to project an image of upscale as opposed to price sensitive. Many of the stores and purveyors who are now part of this media war admit that they may not be able to sustain this effort long-term. In fact, marketing experts predict that even Pomegranate will at one point “tone down” its advertising, out a conviction that it has already won the market share that it could have hoped for. In the ongoing poultry war, the winner is clearly the consumer, but in the end the consumer may win the retail war as well.
Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on February 9, 2010 under Kosher, Kosher Stores |
By Menachem Lubinsky
Brooklyn NY… A small mart that was known for its creativity in fruit baskets suddenly closed its doors last week, but the culprit, say food sources, was not the highly successful upscale Pomegranate kosher supermarket, only blocks away, but the mounting “crush of the book.” Fruit Palace on Avenue J was one of those small convenience kosher produce and grocery stores that competed with the larger establishments by extending credit to the hard-pressed middle class. Many stores in the area and especially in communities like Boro Park and Williamsburg keep such black ruled school notebooks with pages of family names where groceries are routinely charged. Sources say Fruit Palace’s book included “a crushing debt of thousands of dollars” that had resulted in a growing accounts payable by the store’s owner. One Boro Park store told a source close to Kosher Today that his book was “worth over $26,000.” A worker at Fruit Palace said that customers would frequently drop of checks of a fraction of the debt, “say $100 on a $400 bill.” Still many customers blamed Pomegranate as severely impacting business of local retailers, although distributors and other food sources say that most of the stores “while hurting are pretty much holding their own.” One source said that a well-known kosher grocer told him: “I’m taking home a lot less nowadays but it is still a parnassah (livelihood).”
The families who put charges on the books are not necessarily from the ranks of the poor, say the sources. Many of the poor use food stamps and other assistance. The group that seems most affected by the recession and by the increased costs of living is lower middle class working people, many with larger families. One storeowner said: “I always think that they are in a temporary bind, but somehow the temporary never ends.”
Posted by Menachem Lubinsky on February 8, 2010 under Kosher, Sixth Sense |
By Menachem Lubinsky
Who would have believed? That’s the way I felt on February 1st at the Kosher Restaurant & Wine Experience, sponsored by Kedem and held on Pier 60 on the Hudson River. I am already used to seeing displays of upscale kosher wines and foods, but this was different. It wasn’t only because of the sheer number of great tasting wines from all over the world, but it was the overall presentation that included magnificent displays by some of New York’s finest kosher restaurants, and of course, Pomegranate with its carving stations with magnificent cuts of meat and exotic dips. But there is more on the horizon. In the next few weeks, Manischewitz will host its annual cook-off, featuring legendary chef Jacques Pepin, and the government of Canada will be hosting an event to introduce some of the finest foods from Canada. Met Council on Jewish Poverty will be hosting a fundraiser for its food program that will include an honor for the former master chef of the Waldorf Astoria, John Doherty.
All of these signs are extremely encouraging as the message of Kosherfest, first introduced 21 years ago, is most definitely catching on. And what is the message of Kosherfest? That kosher foods and wines have come of age, not only in serving a growing base of people who eat kosher but to the world of food in general and that is quite an accomplishment.
