Matzo Prices Stun Those Preparing for Passover
The bread is unleavened, but the price can be anything but kosher.
As Jewish households prepare for the Passover holiday, which starts April 21 at sundown, grocery shoppers are finding some very unholy news at checkout stands: The price of matzo has risen in some cities across the country.
A five-pound package of the wafer-like crackers is selling for as much as $13 in stores from Los Angeles to Denver to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., angering customers who are forking over more than they would like for a food that is central to the eight-day holiday.
“It’s horrible,” said Miriam Kroh, 67, as she shopped for Passover goods on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. “You get excited for the holiday. . . . For people who don’t have much money, it’s really hard.”
The higher prices are not found in every location, even in the same city. And some stores are managing to maintain last year’s prices. Still, a jump of about $2 over last Passover’s cost is most noticeable in small mom-and-pop grocery stores that operate on a thin margin and cannot afford to offer special discounts available at large chains.
Shoppers like Kroh preparing for traditional family Seders aren’t the only ones who are outraged.
Florida Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Boca Raton) this week asked Florida Atty. Gen. Bob Butterworth to explore possible criminal wrongdoing in that state after outraged constituents flooded his office with complaints.
Butterworth, in turn, has launched an investigation to determine whether distributors and manufacturers have broken any price-fixing laws. Nine matzo makers and distributors in Florida, New York and New Jersey--including one of the nation’s largest matzo companies, B. Manischewitz--have been subpoenaed to turn over records by May 13.
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The Manischewitz company could not be reached for comment late Thursday.
Five-pound boxes of the unleavened bread are selling in South Florida--home to about half a million Jews, many of them elderly and on fixed incomes--for up to $13, almost three times as much as the retail price in New York, Wexler said.
Wexler’s office conducted a spot check by phone at stores in six cities across the country and found five-pound packages selling for prices ranging from $12.35 in Denver to $9.99 in Bethesda, Md., to as little as $3.99 in New York City.
“When consumers get ripped off for any reason, it’s wrong,” said Wexler, whose South Florida constituency is nearly 40% Jewish. “But if they are getting ripped off as a result of a religious celebration, that’s unconscionable to me.”
Grocery chains and small outlets blamed the rising prices on their distributors, who in turn pointed the finger at the manufacturers.
Locally, merchants and distributors say no conspiracy lies behind the price increases. Instead, they say, the increase is due to their own rising costs--and the unusual fact that those who sell the product often get stuck with leftover inventory once the holiday passes.
“The manufacturer raises his price because of the rise in the cost of materials,” said Marvin Pearlman, chief executive of A-1 International Foods, a large distributor of kosher products in Southern California and other Western states. “The markup is always the same. I never change my markup.”
Discounts at large grocery chains lower the cost for some. At the Pavilions grocery store in Beverly Hills, five-pound packages of Manischewitz matzo sell for as little as $2.89 after special discounts from the listed price of $14.89. At Ralphs, the same product is being sold--again, after discounts--for $3.99.
Analysts say the large chains drop their prices--and sometimes take a loss--to attract shoppers.
Jennifer Bush, a spokeswoman for Publix Super Markets Inc., which operates 540 stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina, said even at higher prices, matzo is a money-loser.
“This is not a profit item for us,” Bush said. “Believe me, suppliers have increased the cost to us.”
But small Jewish markets that operate on a thin margin in enclaves across the country cannot afford to make such allowances. They say they are forced to pass along their higher costs.
“They are asking me why the prices are so high?” said one store owner in the Pico-Robertson area of West Los Angeles, who is charging $14.99 for a five-pound package of Manischewitz matzo, about $2 more than last year. “I said the distributor raised the prices, so I did.”
Don’t offer any such excuses to Abe Asofsky, the Coconut Creek, Fla., retiree whose complaints launched the matzo investigation in Florida. Asofsky brought the price disparity to the attention of Wexler when Wexler paid a recent visit to Asofsky’s synagogue.
“Somebody is taking advantage of a special situation because for observant Jews, you cannot substitute for this product,” Asofsky said. “ . . . This has got to stop.”
