Reading “Kosher Butchers Cutting Closer To The Bone” (Oct. 28) one would mistakenly conclude that only stores outside the kosher community offer savings.
My family has been in the kosher food business for half a century and offering, from day one, the best possible value. My father, Sam Brach, of blessed memory, considered making kosher food affordable his life’s mission.
We, the stores in the kosher community, take very seriously the responsibility to serve our people. We stock the full line of most of the brands we carry.
Even slow-moving, offbeat items that may not pay the rent for their shelf space are on the shelf nonetheless. Costco and chain stores are in a position to dictate terms and prices and dictate they do. They cherry-pick only the fastest-moving products to maximize their profits. Companies in the kosher industry cannot possibly survive if they can’t sell their entire line. Costco and the chains may understand, but they apparently don’t care.
Furthermore, we asked a number of companies to sell us the club-packs for our customers’ convenience. They all told me that Costco makes it clear that if they sell them to us, Costco will drop them as suppliers.
If Costco and the chains are successful in their attempt to force the kosher stores out of business, the kosher companies, lacking a market to move all their products, will soon follow.
We are grateful that the majority of kosher consumers are sticking with stores from our community. They seem to appreciate that the kosher stores have been hard at work upgrading, expanding and innovating. We urge them to call the manufacturers of all the kosher brands in Costco and demand that the same products, packaging and pricing be made available to local kosher stores.
Brach’s Supermarket Lawrence, L.I.
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