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FOR HEALTH AND COST REASONS, FEWER JEWISH CONSUMERS ARE BUYING
USHER MEAT. 11110 THE INDUSTRY IS SHRINKING.
T HE D ETRO IT JEW IS H N EWS
ALAN HITSKY ASSOCIATE EDITOR
40
hen Sarah Cohen walked
up to the kosher meat
counter in the Ten Mile -
Coolidge Farmer Jack
last week, she thought
the prices were a little
high. There certainly
was a difference between
the pound of kosher
hamburger she held and
the pound she could have
picked up at the non-
kosher counter in the
same store.
But the difference isn't
just in the price.
At Coolidge and
Lincoln, a half-mile
north of Farmer Jack,
butcher Jack Cohen of
Cohen & Son Meat
Market scoffs at the com-
parison. "Prices don't
ro anything," said
Mr. Cohen, who has been
in the business for 39
years.
To the six independent
kosher butchers in the
Detroit area, it is their
service to the customer
— special orders, trim-
ming and top quality —
that brings the cus-
tomers back. But fewer
and fewer customers are
looking for those services
or are willing to pay for
them.
Many kosher con-
sumers are buying their
meat and poultry from
the three Farmer Jack
stores with kosher meat
counters, and many,
despite the quality of
kosher meat at both the
independents and the
supermarket, are turn-
ing away from kosher
because of the cost.
"You can't compare the
quality" between the
independents and
Farmer Jack, or between
Farmer Jack's kosher
and treife (non-kosher)
meat counters, argues
Mr. Cohen. Even though
Farmer Jack and the
independents buy kosher
meat from the same
sources, "we age the
steak two weeks," says
Mr. Cohen, "while they
sell it tomorrow."
Aging means leaving
the slab of meat in the
cooler for 2 - 2 1/2 weeks.
The discolored steaks on
each end and the fat are
then trimmed away. The
remaining meat is prime,
but the cost increases
because the butcher had
to pay for what was
trimmed.
Changing demand also
has shrunk the kosher
meat industry in Detroit.
Alan Cohen, longtime
president of the Kosher
Retail Meat Dealers
Association, estimated
that in the 1920s and
1930s there were 70
kosher butcher shops in
Detroit. Morris Flatt,
owner of Cornbelt
Packing — Detroit's only
kosher slaughterhouse —
says 53 kosher butchers
and four or five slaugh-
terhouses exsisted when
he began kosher slaugh-
tering in 1954.
Today, the Detroit area
has nine retail outlets
for kosher meat.
"The Jewish people