Study Shows Slight Drop in Prices in Some Kosher Food in New York

The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, which makes a weekly comparison of retail food prices in some two dozen groceries and supermarkets, made a special study of kosher food prices during March and April which indicated a slight drop in the prices of some kosher foods before Passover, this year, City Councilman Noach Dear, a Brooklyn Democrat, said today. Dear, who was chairman of a City Council hearing on the recurrent problem of sudden jumps in kosher product prices before Passover and the High Holy Days, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he felt that “public pressure” had brought the price declines. Dear said another indication of such pressure was a hearing two weeks earlier than the City Council hearing, a joint State Assembly-Senate hearing here under the chairmanship of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver (D. Manhattan) and Sen. Carol Berman (D. Nassau).

Simon Gourdine, City Consumer Affairs Commissioner, also said it was “possible that the publicity concerning the investigations of kosher food products held prices down this year.”

Dear said that the consumer affairs department representatives made four comparison visits to the stores they regularly check for the department’s weekly “Market Basket” report on prices.

Dear said Gourdine had promised that his department would make a special survey in metopolitan New York on kosher prices before Rosh Hashanah, which Dear said would be first city survey of prices relative to that holiday. Dear said he was told the department’s comparison shoppers would make at least four weekly visits to the stores before the High Holy Days and possibly two weekly visits after the holiday for comparison of any price changes in kosher foods.

The kosher-for-Passover products for which prices were checked before last Passover were borscht, gefilte fish, horseradish, matzoh, matzoh meal, chocolate macaroons, kosher chicken and canned fruit cocktail. The figures showed that prices went up by slight increases for four of the nine products but that there was a drop of 37 cents per pound for matzoh and 22 cents per pound for chocolate macaroons. Non-kosher chicken rose slightly in price per pound while kosher chicken dropped six cents per pound.