Kosher Industry Overview
The Kosher industry and certification initiated in the US back in 1898 when the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations was established. In 1918 The New York State Legislature enacted the nation’s first Kosher Food Law. Nearly a decade after that, in 1924, the Union of Orthodox Congregations introduced an official kashrut supervision and certification program.
Today, the US has more than 12 million kosher consumers, including many non-Jewish consumers. For the non-Jewish population, there are several motives other than religious concerns to buy kosher products – these include Islam, veganism, eating healthier and safer, as well as overall animal welfare. In total, the OU Kosher – the largest kosher certifying agency- has almost 1,500 kashrut supervisors worldwide, 1,000 in the US and another 500 working abroad. The US is also home to nearly 40% of the global Jewish population - 30% of which are kosher consumers.
Although the global Jewish population is relatively small (only 14.5 million in 2017) and has been growing at a very moderate pace since 1950, the Kosher Market has proved to be very successful and has achieved wide-spread growth both in the US and globally.
Today, the global kosher food market size is estimated at $24 billion. It is rapidly growing at a CAGR of 11.6% and is expected to reach $60 billion by 2025. Kosher’s successful model serves as a great benchmark for the food certification market globally.
Halal Market Vs. Kosher Market
While the Kosher food market is a successful and rapidly growing market, it remains small and incomparable to the Halal Food market
– a market estimated at $1.3 trillion in 2017. The Halal Food Market is, in fact, 50 times as big as the Kosher Food Market and is also continuing to grow at a CAGR of 7.6%.
In addition to this, unlike Kosher, the Halal Market is not restricted to food. It widely involves seven other sectors, including Finance, Fashion, Tourism, Media, Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, and Healthcare, which bring up its combined market size to $6.3 trillion in 2017 and average CAGR across sectors of 7.9%. The eight sectors will combine to reach a market of almost $10 Trillion by 2022.
