Kosherfest – long the largest kosher food exhibition – announced Wednesday that it is discontinuing what has been referred to as “the world’s biggest kiddush” due to declining interest.
“Due to today’s changing supermarket category manager buying responsibilities and the elimination of the kosher buyer in many major supermarket chains, exhibitors feel Kosherfest has run its course and there is no longer significant ROI to justify exhibiting at the show,” organizers wrote in a statement.
“Within supermarket chains, the kosher food category increasingly falls under the grocery buyer’s responsibility. As this buyer is responsible for sourcing and purchasing a wide array of products, they are more likely to attend food events displaying items not just exclusive to kosher. A certified kosher only food show such as Kosherfest is too niche for their attendance,” it added.
Established in 1989, Kosherfest iuncluded an exhibition hall, lectures, cooking demonstrations, a culinary competition between celebrity chefs, and new product awards. It was considered a showcase for food trends and innovations in the kosher-certified food industry. The events were closed to the public, but admitted manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers, buyers, caterers, retail stores, and media personnel, including photographers and food bloggers.
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6 Responses
this seems contrary to all the articles saying the exact opposite, something else seems to be at play
A good first step to killing the obsessive “phressing” yetzer horah that is now plaguing our community.
Good Riddance to this event, which went out of their way to banish We Kosher consumers who didn’t meet their definition of being sufficiently involved in Kashruth to be deserving enough to attend, so Koshefest is getting exactly what they deserve, and too bad they shan’t be able to socialize any more, which is what they did most of the time
FYI a new Kosher Food Show is starting up, called JFoods. There will b a 2 day event on June 13th-14th at the NJ Expo in Edison NJ & the 1st day will only be for businesses & the second day will be for consumers. I don’t know much about it, but it’s supposed to be a pretty big event.
“this seems contrary to all the articles saying the exact opposite, something else seems to be at play..”
Lakwoodt: YUP…big conspiracy here….clearly something else at play. Its called economics 101.
The company that has sponsored the Kosherfest event for the past several years, Diversified Communications, is one of several big media companies with a mixed portfolio of trade conferences and expositions, trade publications, webinars, electronic media events etc. In this case, they rent space from the NJ Convention center and lease booths to exhibitors. While the kosher product market is booming, as the article noted, it has gone mainstream and fewer wholesale buyers at supermarkets focus just on the “kosher” product category. At the same time, the cost of renting the space and putting on any trade show has gone up substantially.
In the post-Covid world, fewer buyers are showing up at these shows and they could not get enough registrants make a profit. There are still lots of smaller events focusing on segments of the kosher product market but these mega-events, like many other traditional trade shows are no longer viable.
Been there, not much different than an all you can eat shmorg. As long as you did the dairy first, then did the meat it was ok, but all in all pretty useless and waste of time