Food coverage is supported by a generous donation from Susan and Moses Libitzky.
Rabbi Mendel Pil grew up drinking grainy milk. He didn’t know it came any other way.
That’s because his Hasidic family kept to the highest kosher standards, meaning dairy products had to be certified “chalav Yisrael.” All of his family’s meat and dairy came frozen from Los Angeles. Fresh milk drinkers are probably unaware of this fact, but when milk is defrosted, the fat separates and a grainy texture results.
For most of his life, “we lived out of the freezer,” Pil said. For the past 15 years, he added, it was also impossible to find a good variety of cuts of fresh kosher meat in the city.
Not anymore. Pil was euphoric during a recent interview as he pushed a shopping cart loaded with food in the parking lot of Andronico’s Community Market at 1200 Irving St. in San Francisco. Both that store and the Safeway at 1530 Hamilton Ave. in San Jose introduced brand-new kosher sections at the start of February after Pil approached the stores’ parent company, which then conducted market research to ensure there was demand.
These are not just paltry offerings. Overseen by Yakov Yarmove, the Chicago-based corporate director of ethnic foods at Albertsons Market, which owns Andronico’s and Safeway, these are kosher sections worth boasting about.
Each store has added at least 400 new kosher products, though not exactly the same ones, Yarmove said. Because Chabad has a more concentrated presence in San Francisco than in the South Bay, with numerous emissaries and their larger-than-average families, he said, the Andronico’s offers the chalav Yisrael milk and other dairy products just for them. The South Bay, meanwhile, is home to a larger Israeli community, so the San Jose store is stocked with more kosher items from Israel.
Yarmove, who was visiting the San Francisco store, and store director Sarah Speakman showed me around the Andronico’s kosher sections — located in the deli, dairy, meat, freezer, dry goods and bakery sections of the store.
Not only were there fresh hamantaschen and black-and-white cookies, but there were five types of herring in the deli. The freezer held borekas, jachnun, bialys, pizza dough and imitation shrimp and crab.
Shopper Vicky Schneider doesn’t keep a kosher home but was excited to see stuffed cabbage, not because it was kosher but because she considers it a Jewish food. She said her husband would be excited, too.
“If you’ve ever made stuffed cabbage, you know why I’m buying it,” she said.
Shopper David Garth was happy to see Meal Mart meatballs in the freezer case.
“Before, I had to go all the way to Oakland to get them,” he said. “We’re so happy about this. Long may it continue.”
Yarmove noted that observant shoppers are used to driving out of their way for kosher food.
“We wandered in the desert for 40 years. What’s another 45 minutes?” he joked.
The closest full-fledged kosher market, Oakland Kosher, can be a much longer trip in traffic, though.
The lack of a well-stocked kosher store has long prevented observant families from settling in San Francisco, Pil said, and this improved market could really make a difference.
The shelf-stable kosher aisle had a wide variety of products: Italian olives, nori sheets, wasabi powder, Israeli chocolate spread, Dr. Brown’s soda, kosher Skittles and a single serving of beef cholent in packaging that comes with its own heating element for travel.
Another section features Elite instant coffee and Wissotzky tea, favorite brands in Israel. People who want to show their support for the Jewish state can specifically find Israeli products, Yarmove said.
The butcher case has all the usual cuts of fresh, kosher chicken, beef and lamb — no more waiting 24 hours for it to defrost in the refrigerator.
Though temporary, there is also a Passover section, with numerous individual displays placed in the freezer aisle. While the average shopper, Jewish or not, might not understand the significance of this selection, Yarmove was practically bubbling about the Heinz kosher-for-Passover ketchup. (That product was “for the win,” he said.)
There are too many varieties of matzah to count, including shmurah matzah and one type of gluten-free oat matzah that costs upward of $40. There are also items one would never expect to see in kosher-for-Passover versions, like chow mein noodles, dried pasta made from cassava, ranch dressing, vanilla-flavored sugar and sweet chili sauce.
“When I was growing up, Passover felt like a holiday of abstinence,” Yarmove said. “Now you can observe it so much more easily. What can’t you get?”
Speakman, the store director, said that she had seen members of the city’s observant community shop at her store for years, but they only bought limited items. She had wondered how the store could better serve them.
She worked closely with Yarmove to help bring the kosher expansion to fruition.
“We want to be a one-stop shop,” Speakman said, adding that the store employees have been trying many of the kosher items, in a cross-cultural exchange.
Rabbi Nosson Potash of Chabad of Cole Valley said he used to shop at Andronico’s about once a month. He hadn’t heard that the expansion was coming, so the sight of kosher ice cream nearly sent him into shock, he said.
Now he’s shopping there several times a week. Potash said he’s been running into people from the Jewish community in the kosher sections, which, especially since Oct. 7, has been a bonus.
He added that there are so many new products to try. A chocolate lover he knows tested out a chalav Yisrael treat she just discovered at Andronico’s and told him:
“I didn’t know kosher chocolate could be so good.”