Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Safran, Senior Rabbinic Coordinator and Vice President of Marketing and Communications at OU Kosher, based in New York, will cross the pond later this month to speak on “The Growing Kosher Market,” at the Fi (Food Ingredients) Europe Conference 2007, to be held in London October 30-November 1.
Rabbi Safran will speak on Wednesday, October 31 from 3:15-4:15 p.m. (15:15-16:15) in a session devoted to ethnic markets.
At attendance of 23,000 food ingredients professionals – including manufacturers, suppliers, scientists, technologists, food ingredient buyers, and at least one rabbi – are expected to attend. The conference is held biannually, each time in a different European country.
The show will feature more than one thousand exhibitors from 100 countries, who will display a diverse array of international food ingredients and manufacturing products and services.
OU Kosher, the largest kosher certification agency in the world, has certified hundreds of thousands of food ingredients as part of its global operations. The famed OU symbol can be found on more than 400,000 products manufactured in 80 countries. The OU, of course, is no stranger to Europe; its rabbis in the field visit plants and facilities throughout the continent to monitor kosher production there.
Rabbi Safran came to the attention of conference organizers through a webinar he and the Food Institute jointly presented on August 1 to food industry professionals on the advantages of kosher certification, how to obtain it, and the differences between the OU and other kosher certifications. At the London conference, he will elaborate on these themes, adding that the overwhelming majority of ingredients are available in kosher grade.
Rabbi Safran has traveled the world lecturing on OU Kosher and why it is in a company’s best interests to enter the giant kosher market, which is growing at an annual 15 percent rate. He expects a large and interested audience in his Fi Conference presentation.