New Jersey goes KLBD at the Kosherfest trade show

12 December 2012

The KLBD team was out in force getting the kosher certification message across to hundreds of influential people at the world’s largest kosher-certified products trade show, held in the USA during mid-November.
New Jersey goes KLBD at the Kosherfest trade show
Taking place each year at the Meadowlands Expo Center in the New Jersey town of Secaucus, the KosherFest trade show is a major destination for American food industry professionals who are part of the important kosher market.

This year was no exception, with a huge turn-out of people involved in restaurants and supermarkets, food manufacturers, distributors, rabbis and specialists who produce chemicals and ingredients for the food industry.
While the retail people came to the show from all across the USA, many of the chemicals and ingredient manufacturers to the food industry are actually based in the state of New Jersey, conveniently located for food and drink manufacturers in the north east.

There was plenty to keep this huge audience busy, with more than 300 exhibitors from around the world. Many exhibitors at the show offered food samples and displayed trends in food that are new and interesting while still following Jewish dietary guidelines.

One such novelty, a kosher bacon product called ‘facon’ was launched at the show and caused quite a stir as can be imagined.
KLBD, as you would expect from the largest Kashrut agency in Europe, had a commanding presence at the show with a spacious and busy stand.
Meeting and greeting hundreds of visitors on the stand were KLBD experts Dr Moshe Rosenfeld, Rabbi Akiva Padwa, Rabbi Yankel Eckstein and Rabbi Elie Schoemann.
As representatives of a leading global kosher certification agency, the KLBD team was able to demonstrate to the visitors at their stand that KLBD is in a key position to assist food industry professionals in the USA.
The team impressed on their visitors that KLBD can help whether a company makes foods, drinks or the chemicals and ingredients that are involved in their production.
One of the main messages from the KLBD team was that the kosher food market in the USA is worth millions of dollars a year and kosher certification through an organisation like KLBD can quickly and efficiently open up this market.

In addition, KLBD can help major supermarket chains like Wal-Mart and food distributors to find sources of kosher food products from the extensive KLBD client database.

The KLBD stand was able to offer some kosher hospitality too, in the form of whiskey liqueur and truffles, both kosher certified by KLBD, of course.

Supplied by KLBD client Drambuie, glasses of KLBD certified whisky liqueur were handed out to visitors to the stand by Drambuie’s brand ambassador Anthony Caporale.

In addition to having a glass of the whisky, many important visitors were lucky enough to leave the stand with a complimentary bottle of the KLBD certified Drambuie.

The kosher truffle samples were supplied by Truffle Corner, whose director Bathsheva Sergeant was on the KLBD stand to explain the benefits of this unusual food to interested people.

Bathsheva took many orders from people who had tried her truffles and wanted supplies for their restaurants, shops or supermarkets.

Summing up the show, Rabbi Elie Schoemann of KLBD said: “KosherFest was a great success this year in terms of the large number of useful connections we made. These will benefit KLBD in the coming months when our sales team follows up all the leads that we created during the event.