nation
A Jews Brace for Costliest
Passover in Decades
s Jews clear their haman-
taschen crumbs, thoughts
immediately turn to Passover.

But with inflation reaching a 40-year
high in February, next month’s holiday
will be anything but an exodus from
increased expenses.

Pittsburgh resident Rochel Shlomo has
worked in food services for 30 years.

“It’s never been like this,” she said.

Shlomo is vice-president of sales at
Sampo, a full-service wholesale kosher
and specialty foods distributor serving
Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West
Virginia. On the day she was interviewed,
Shlomo read through invoices dating to
8 BY ADAM REINHERZ
2020. “The same item goes up week after
week,” she said. “It’s frightening.”
Shlomo pointed to the cost of canned
goods. “A year ago, 24 cans of corn cost a
distributor $17.75. This year, it’s $24.80,”
she said. “This has nothing to do with
kosher. This is just crazy increases.”
In a March 10 report, the Labor
Department noted that the consumer
price index rose 7.9% during the past
year, with gasoline, shelter and food
prices contributing to the climb.

Shlomo said that when people go to the
pump and see fuel at almost $4 a gallon,
it’s no surprise other costs have risen.

MARCH 17, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
“America gets its food by truck. It’s
not being droned in,” she said.

Sampo is paying almost double now
from what it did last year to fuel its
trucks, Shlomo said, but the other
problem is labor shortages. “One ven-
dor told me, ‘the chickens show up
every day, the workers don’t.’”
Yehuda Fink is the chief financial offi-
cer of David Elliot Poultry, a third-gen-
eration Scranton-based company.

Fink said that since the pandemic
began David Elliot has offered workers
a 401(k), referral bonuses, “anything to
get more people in,” but the effects of
the “Great Resignation” continue.

“We used to use about 90 employees
on a daily basis. We haven’t been able
to get it above 80 more than a few times
over the past 18 months,” he said.

The absence of workers plays out in
all sorts of ways. Take chicken feet, for
instance, which require extra labor to
process. Without workers able to pre-
pare the product, David Elliot sends
chicken feet to recycling. So, instead
of selling a product for above $6 per
pound at wholesale, the company ends
up collecting a “few cents per pound”
from a rendering company, Fink said.

“There’s not much we can do about it.”
Another issue is packaging.