 | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Kosher Foods |
| Founded | Cincinnati, Ohio (1888 (1888)) |
| Founder | Dov Behr Manischewitz |
| Headquarters | 80 Avenue K,Newark, New Jersey ,United States[1] |
Area served | Nationwide |
| Products | |
| Owner | Kayco Kosher & Beyond - Bayonne, NJ |
| Website | www |
Manischewitz (/ˌmænɪˈʃɛvɪts/;Hebrew:מנישביץ) is a brand ofkosher products founded in 1888 inCincinnati, Ohio, and best known for itsmatzo andkosher wine. It became a public corporation in 1923 but remained under family control until January 1991,[2] when it was bought out by aprivate equity firm. On April 7, 2014, Sankaty Advisors, an arm of the private equity firmBain Capital, bought the company from a group that included the investment firm Harbinger.[3] It is the world's largestmatzo manufacturer, one of America's largest kosher brands, and the first American exporter of matzo.[4]
Because matzo must go from mixing to baking in a very short period of time to prevent the possibility of the dough rising, before the mid-1800s, matzo was typically baked in purpose-built ovens located in synagogues.[5] Starting in the mid-1800s, it was typically baked in small bakeries with specialized machines.[5] It was often not easily accessible to non-wealthy families.[5]
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TheB. Manischewitz Company, LLC was founded by RabbiDov Behr Manischewitz, in 1888 inCincinnati,Ohio. Manischewitz designed a machine that could cut and bake matzo in a form that was easily packaged and shipped, which made producing it less expensive and so more available to most US Jews.[5] The Company went public in 1923 and remained a public corporation until it was taken private in amanagement buyout led byKohlberg & Company in 1990 for $42.5 million.[6][7][8] By 1926, theCuvier Press Club described it as the largest firm of matzo bakers in the world, and the first American exporter of the flatbread.[4]
In the 1930s, in order to produce their products all year round, the company created Tam-Tam crackers, which are small hexagonal matzos, according to a recent bookManischewitz: The Matzo Family, written by the founder's great-granddaughter, Laura Manischewitz Alpern (though the modern Tam Tam is quite different from matzo). Their original product, the square matzo, revolutionized matzo-making, which until the family's production process, used to consist of rolling the matzo and trimming the edges by hand. It was also considered quite revolutionary to make matzos by machine.[9] The company built a second production site on Bay Street inJersey City,New Jersey, in 1932, to better serve the large Jewish community of theNew York metropolitan area,[10] and the Cincinnati facility was eventually closed in 1958.
In 1990, a $1 million fine was levied against the company forprice fixing with its two main competitors at the time,Streit's andHorowitz-Margareten.[11] In 1998, Richard A. Bernstein purchased the company from KKR.[12] In 2004 its name was changed to theR.A.B. Food Group, LLC and today it is known asThe Manischewitz Company.[10]
From 2007 to 2014, Manischewitz was owned by the hedge fundHarbinger Capital.[13] Manischewitz remains the world's top matzo manufacturer and one of America's top kosher brands.[6] On June 14, 2011, a new 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) facility opened at 80 Avenue K in the East Ward ofNewark, New Jersey, serving as both a plant and corporate headquarters for the company.[14] In July 2017 the company closed the facility in favor of another New Jersey location, cutting 169 jobs.[15]
Manischewitz's main innovation - making matzos with machines instead of by hand - aroused some initial controversy. Some rabbis of the era claimed that in order to be acceptable for religious use, the matzo had to have been made by a man and not a machine.[6][16] Manischewitz was ultimately able to overcome these concerns, in part by demonstrating meticulous adherence to thehalakha (religious rules).[16] During thePassover season, the company has reported producing up to 851,000 matzos per day.[17]
Manischewitz acquired Horowitz-Margareten Matzo and manufactures Goodman matzo andmacaroons.In addition to matzo, Manischewitz-labeled foods include cookies, macaroons, pasta, and soups. Other well-known kosher brands associated with R.A.B. include Carmel, Elite, Mother's, Rokeach, Mrs. Adler's, and Tradition; many of these were acquired by R.A.B. after successful runs as independent kosher labels.[18]
However, R.A.B. is not involved with Manischewitz wine, except in name. Beginning in 1986, it licensed the Manischewitz brand name to the Manischewitz Wine Company, a subsidiary of Canandaigua Wine Company (nowConstellation Brands).[19] In 2021, the brand was acquired byE & J Gallo Winery.[20]
The Manischewitzwinery is located inCanandaigua, New York.[21] It is the property of E & J Gallo, which continues to license the Manischewitz name from R.A.B. Foods.[22] The winery was founded by Leo Star and run by the Star family since 1927.
The Manischewitz winery is best known for its budgetconcord wine, which is widely available in much ofNorth America.[23] Made fromlabrusca grapes, it is combined with a large amount ofresidual sugar.[24] Because concord was popularized by the U.S. media over the years as beingthe kosher wine, it is often the wine that is used to celebratePassover. However, Manischewitz's sweet Concord contains corn syrup, a sweetener derived from corn,which is forbidden during Passover amongAshkenazi Jews. Manischewitz produces special Kosher for Passover bottling of its wines, which are sweetened with cane sugar as opposed to the corn syrup that is used throughout the year.[25][26]
The sweetness of Manischewitz wine and other kosher wines is often the fodder of jokes. However, Kosher wine does not have to be sweet. One of the reasons for the prevalence of sweet kosher wine in the U.S., and in theAmericas generally, dates back to the early days of Jews in America, when they needed to locally produce kosher wine for theKiddush ritual that is performed on theShabbat and holidays. The combination of a limited choice of grape varieties that could grow in the areas where Jews had settled, along with the limited amount of time that was available to produce the wine and a market that was dominated by hard cider, yielded a bitter wine that had to be sweetened in order to make it palatable.[27]
Because the sweet Manischewitz variety of wine is so well known in the U.S., the existence of a thrivingkosher wine industry that is anchored by vineyards in France andIsrael, along with a growing U.S. industry, is often a surprise to Americans who are unaccustomed to taking kosher wine seriously.[19]
The company has used the slogan "Man-O-Manischewitz What a Wine!" for advertising. The company and this advertising campaign are fictionally represented in season five ofMad Men as a new account.[28]
This concern was the first to export matzos from the United States, and now exports to all civilized countries of the world nearly 1,000,000 pounds annually.
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