Kosher Food and Drink

Like much else in life, you need to understand where Kosherpalooza came from to understand what it is.

Kosherfest was a trade show that ran from about 1990-2022. At its height, it was a big deal in the small world of kosher food, with 500 vendors and 12,000 attendees. As time progressed, it shrank to about half that size. In 2022, the organization putting on the show put an end to it. While this sounds surprising, 6000 attendees is a fairly small show as things go; as point of comparison, another trade show I’m familiar with, SHOT, had 50k+ attendees recently. Combined with a general trend away from trade shows (CES’ demise coming to mind), KosherFest going away was perhaps inevitable.

The next year, PowWow Events and Fleishigs magazine decided to do their own version, but as a consumer show. Kosherpalooza was born. The obvious advantage to this is that you can sell tickets to anyone, not just industry professionals (as was the case with Kosherfest). The downside is that the math on showing up as a vendor gets more complicated. I appreciated that they were making this effort, so I rolled the dice and bought some tickets for my wife and I. Our tickets were at a Fleishigs subscriber discount, meaning they were $99 each. Regular pricing was closer to $120-$150, depending on what sort of discount you could (or could not) wrangle.

The Meadowlands Expo Center is about a 3.5 hour drive for us, so we made a three day trip out of it. You can see some of our adventures at Barnea Bistro and Le Marais in other articles. There was plenty of hotel space nearby, and there’s kosher dining available a short drive away.

My wife and I were there for about four hours. This was our first time going (and the second time it’s been held). I think that you need to have your expectations realistic. It’s big, but it’s not that big. We listened to a few sessions, hit all the booths, and were done. I don’t think that’s a bad value for our money by any stretch (we left pretty stuffed), but if you’re expecting it to be the kosher food equivalent of a big trade or consumer show, you’re going to be disappointed.

I will say that we were happy that we went. The vendors were friendly and free with samples, and I thought the panels we went to were worthwhile. I learned a lot of technique from watching Bosh Boshnack break down a duck and a chicken that way a pro would. I thought the Moroccan fish demo with Gad Elbaz (yes, that Gad Elbaz) was both hilarious and informational. And the kosher restaurant panel with GKRF, YTK, and the proprietor of Salt was entertaining and well-run. I enjoyed discovering some new brands and new products. I think you could have spent the entire seven hours there if you were interested in all the demos and panels.

A few things I especially enjoyed:

• The Natural & Kosher black truffle prairie jack cheese was outstanding. If you’re making a cheese board, this should be on it.
• The Frostop orange cream soda (pareve) was outstanding. Apparently sold at ACE Hardware.
• The (paerve) 7th Heaven chocolate was superb.
• The Pacific Secrets crew had a vegan caviar substitute (seaweed, apparently) that was just amazing. Nailed the texture, and the taste was fairly similar to other caviar I’ve had. Could be good for hors d’oeuvres.
• Dolcetto (restaurant) had a beef carpaccio sample that was out of this world.
• The Pizza Guy had some meat pizza samples that were amongst the best I’ve ever tasted.

Now, the hard question: would I go again next year? Probably if it was convenient timing. Taking off three days for this, then two days for Shavuos, and then a week for a “real” vacation was somewhat more painful than I anticipated. But my wife and I were joking afterwards that our son’s “restaurant focus mini-mester” this week would have done pretty well to simply come to Kosherpalooza and talk to some exhibitors.

On the whole, it’s a worthwhile event if you’re interested in kosher food as an industry, and if you’re not so far away like we are, why not? Kudos to PowWow Events Fleishigs Magazine for keeping the fire of Kosherfest going.