Kosher becomes chic

WCBS

When Albertsons hired Yakov Yarmove more than three years ago, the company found a point man to navigate what might seem like an unlikely market for a grocery chain with stores in places like Cheyenne, Wyo., and Evanston, Ill.: kosher food.
Albertsons, one of the nation's largest grocery chains, has since dramatically expanded kosher aisles at hundreds of its supermarkets across the country. The company has also launched more than two dozen kosher destination stores that include everything from bakeries to delis.
"There's a kosher awakening," said Yarmove, an observant Jew who is Albertsons's corporate kosher, marketing and operations manager. "Kosher was perceived as scary and foreign. Now it's perceived as chic. I think everybody is realizing that there is an opportunity."
The Idaho-based Albertsons is just one of many companies around the country competing to get a lucrative slice of an approximately $9 billion kosher industry that is growing at a rate of 15 percent a year...