Dive Brief:

• New research from Kosher Network International (KNi), a global platform that shares information on kosher food, recipes, news and entertainment, finds the global market for kosher foods is worth $24 billion and will grow 11.5% by 2025, reports Supermarket News.
• Kosher items are a strong driver of basket size, reports Supermarket News. According to KNi research, baskets that contain kosher items are three times the dollar value of baskets without kosher items. Vice president of KNi Deborah Shapiro said in a statement, “The average basket of a kosher consumer is $75 on bi-weekly trips or $200 on single weekly trips and only 10% of these baskets come from the specialty kosher sections. The rest of the basket is filled with mainstream grocery items that have adapted kosher certifications."
• Kosher is the most popular product claim on food items, according to the KNi release. But food manufacturers are missing sales opportunities because of a lack of marketing or poor retail merchandising efforts. "What is surprising is that many manufacturers go through the expense of getting a kosher certification, then do nothing to tell the kosher consumer that their product is kosher,” Shapiro said.

Dive Insight:

While the kosher market is not one that gets much attention, it’s a growing segment that holds opportunity for food manufacturers and grocers, according to research from Kosher Network International. An increasingly diverse population is driving interest and growth of the kosher food market. This year, more than 2 million new patrons have visited KNI’s website, JOYofKosher.com, reports Supermarket News. Most visitors are 25-35 year-old millennial parents, who no longer view kosher as a niche category, according to KNi.

The multicultural millennial population in the United States has huge spending power that food companies should be paying attention to. According to the Nielsen study “Multicultural Millennials: The Multiplier Effect,” about 42% of millennial consumers say they are multicultural. And they’re big spenders, dishing out more than $65 billion each year and influencing more than $1 trillion in total consumer spending.

Many digital-savvy millennials say it’s easier to find specific multicultural products from an internet search compared to seeking them out in stores, according to Nielsen. This jibes with KNi research, which shows internet searches for Israeli and Jewish food recipes are up 45%. Among the most popularly searched items are couscous, ptitim, challah and Israeli salad.

KNi makes a point of saying that many food brands — Blue Diamond, Domino Foods, Hunt's and Tropicana, among them — go through the process and expense of getting their products kosher-certified, yet they don’t take advantage of it. There certainly are a number of ways kosher brands can bolster their marketing, both online and offline. Importantly, in the online space, manufacturers should invest to ensure their kosher-certified items are highly ranked in terms of keyword search. They also should work closely with grocers so their products, descriptions and keywords are accurately and effectively displayed on retail websites as well.

Kosher brands could collaborate with retailers to improve in-store merchandising initiatives as well. They could learn a lot from studying what works best for niche specialists like Seasons Kosher Supermarkets, which is opening kosher-only stores in U.S. markets like Baltimore, Cleveland and Scarsdale, New York. It almost goes without saying that a presence on special endcaps or other displays during Jewish holidays is a must-have. It’s critical for brands to be represented in a special kosher section, too, if a store has one.

But oftentimes, kosher-certified items are merchandised throughout the store so manufacturers must be a bit more creative in capturing shopper attention. Use of POS materials — including shelf signage, shelf talkers and specially designed shelf tags, like those being deployed in the healthy, sustainability and free-from space — may be a good tactic to consider. Brands may also want to rethink product packaging to ensure prominent front-of-box placement of the kosher certification symbol on their items.