Kashrut.com had a banner season for Passover 2018. Kashrut.com has reached its 22nd anniversary. Kashrut.com is a kosher-food-information website that was established in May 1996. Since then, Kashrut.com has been providing information, alerts, and recipes, and serves as a clearinghouse for all of the Passover information on the web. During the Passover 2018 Season: (February 25 to April 8, 2018) the site had over 155,000 page downloads from 92151 Visits. The Passover index page itself had over 20,000 visitors. The website transferred 59.7GB gigabytes of information.
Many of the trends that we saw in 2017 are continuing to accelerate. These trends are the following:
Healthy Eating
Passover certified cholov stam dairy shortages.
Large information booklets
One of the biggest trends in the food industry today is
"free-from". Many products produced for the "healthy,
natural" market should be easy to make available for Passover
since they are minimally processed, gluten-free, vegan, soy-free and
corn-free. These products should be fairly simple to get Passover
certified, but are not available. Consumers who contacted kashrus
agencies about many of these products were told that the agency had
no information about them..
We should re-educate consumers and
companies that kosher for Passover products require "traceability",
are corn-free, soy-free, and gluten-free. Passover certification
should be a desirable certification, Perhaps kashrus agencies could
provide a designation or list of products produced year-round that
are inherently kosher for Passover; such as is done now for Maxwell
House coffee, Bigelow tea, Lipton tea or RealLemon Lemon Juice.
Many kosher consumers are trying to eat healthier. Some Companies have started to reach out to the "healthy" Passover market that consumers are seeking with Passover quinoa, coconut flour and almond flour. Many of these products were not available outside the major Jewish markets. There was also a lot of confusion about the Passover status of a number of ingredients including quinoa, coconut flour, avocado oil. I noticed issues with the following products
Coconut Oil: People are looking for healthier oils. Coconut oil is a solid at room temperature and so is a substitute for shortening or margarine in baking without trans fat. Coconut oil has unique properties such as being a solid at room temperature and melting around 76 ° F. It does have a strong coconut smell. There are many products now on the market that are virgin, expeller pressed a raw oils. This year the OU said that any OU certified cold pressed virgin coconut oil is usable for Passover without a "P".
Coconut Milk: Trader Joes was usable for Passover without a Passover hecksher under Kosher Check certification as well as Liebers with a hecksher. Last year's second most popular question was about coconut milk was not an issue this year.
Avocado Oil: There was a lot of confusion about using non-Passover certified Avocado Oil for Passover. The brand that Costco sold stated on its label that it contained both cold pressed and refined Avocado Oil. I was told by the OU that this was not usable for Passover. On social media many people reported that they were told by the OU that this product was usable for Passover. The explanation about this confusing subject which I got now was “There are two distinct Chosen Avocado Oils, Virgin Avocado Oil and 100% Pure Avocado Oil. The first product is 100% avocado and is truly cold pressed, and is acceptable for Passover. The second product is 100% avocado oil, but is processed at temperatures that, according to halacha, transfer whatever is absorbed in the equipment into the avocado oil. There is a distinct possibility that other oils, including kitniyos oils, are processed on this equipment.”
Coconut sugar: People were looking for information on which brands they could buy and no information was provided.
Non-nutritive sweeteners such as stevia. People are looking for healthier non-nutritive sweeteners particularly stevia. I do not know of any consumer stevia products for Passover.
Maple Syrup: I got quite a few questions regarding the usability of non-Passover certified maple syrup for Passover.
Almond flour: There was a great deal of confusion about the difference between almond flour and almond meal and why one needed Passover certification according toe the OU and one didn't.
Quinoa- there is still a great deal of confusion about which quinoa products can be used for Passover.
In most cases, I found that the kashrus agencies do not say that a product is usable for Passover unless it is certified as such. To help the consumer, the OU has looked at the usability of soy, rice milks and baby formula for Passover, because of the great demand and listed this information elsewhere on their Passover website. Both the manufacturers and the kashrus agencies are failing to address the healthy-food-for-Passover market, which is surprising, since many of these manufacturers are already careful with their processing or are aiming for the "free-from" allergen market, making them ideal for the gluten-free (non-gebruckts), soy-free and corn-free market of Pesach.
Many of the usual chalav stam dairy products certified for Passover did not arrive in the Boston area. The products were listed as available certified in the OU Passover Guide, but did not show up or were delivered only once to the local supermarkets. So if you were not in the supermarket the "right day", the products were unavailable.
The other thing that I noticed from the questions that I got is
that the Kashrus agencies are producing large on-line documents that
many people do not read or use. The kashrus agencies feel that this
is the time that they get people's attention, so they produce large
documents with many articles, not necessarily about Passover and
which are money maker for the agencies because they contain ads.
These documents are very difficult for users to navigate and find
information.
A positive development: The Chicago Rabbinical
Council Askcrc.org
website is a useful resource for kashrus and Passover kashrus
questions.
Passover is the most important time for the kosher-food industry and the kashrus agencies. From KosherToday: "As many as 80% of American Jews participate in at least one Seder, according to Jewish population studies, contributing to a dynamic Passover market, which represents nearly 40% of year-round kosher food sales. Retailers in Brooklyn, Monsey and Lakewood said that a growing community was simply buying more, an indication that demographics are playing a major role in the soaring kosher food market."
There is a lot that has been done, but a lot more that can be done to ensure a supply of healthy foods that are available for use on this holiday.
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