Baking & Snack - February 2008 - 24

Lotzah
Matzah
Celebrating 120 years of
entrepreneurial success, The R.A.B.
Food Group recently consolidated
operations into a 185,000-sq-ft
diversified production facility and
invested more than $10 million into
renovations and expansions.
BY STEVE BERNE
ow many brands can claim to be in business
for 120 years? Certainly only a handful, and the
Manischewitz brand is one of them. With products being produced at the R.A.B. Food Group
production facility at Newark, NJ, the brand is stronger
today than ever before. In the past five years, the company not only acquired such competitors as Rokeach
(pronounced ro-kay-akh) but also consolidated its
two existing Manischewitz operations (Jersey City and
Vineland, NJ) into the newer, larger Rokeach facility at
Newark. The consolidation included a major capital investment in renovations and new equipment, including a
$10-million, state-of-the-art matzo production line that
replaced the existing line commissioned in 1934.
Founded in Cincinnati, OH, in 1888 by Rabbi Dov
Bear Manischewitz, the company initially started to
make matzo (also spelled matzah or matzoh) for family
and friends for Passover (see "Why is This Night Different?" on Page 27). Business flourished during the next
44 years and, through creative marketing, exploded into
a national and internationally distributed product line of
matzo, matzo meal and farfel (coarse-crushed matzo).
In 1932, the family business moved to Jersey City, into a
much larger, 6-story manufacturing facility dedicated to
matzo and matzo-derivative production. Proximity to the
Tri-State Region helped distribution costs as well because
a majority of the US Jewish population calls the Northeast home. While not the oldest plant producing matzo
in the US, because of the move to New Jersey, Manischewitz is the oldest and most recognized brand of matzo

BAKING & SNACK / February 2008

product in the Western Hemisphere.
Over time, new product lines were added to accommodate a wider consumer base, and in 1940 the company
opened a second facility in Vineland, NJ, focusing on wet
products such as soup, broth, schav (chilled soup made
with sorrel, onions, lemon juice, eggs and sugar), borscht
(beet soup) and gefilte fish (poached fish mass made
from deboned, ground carp, pike and whitefish along
with matzo meal, egg, onion, carrots and seasonings).
The latest move, completed this past summer,
included consolidating the two facilities into the existing
Rokeach facility with a diversity of operations under one
roof. The new matzo line required renovating warehouse
space and segregating the entire operation to satisfy rabbinic requirements. The outcome is a straight-line operation producing more than 37 million lb of matzo per year
(see "Global Impact," Page 34).
SOLID PHILOSOPHY. "This company was built from
the start on trust and quality," said Rick Frawley, director of manufacturing. "While the company conforms to

Baking & Snack - February 2008

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