I noticed it out of the corner of my eye: Something was different in the kosher food section of my local Kroger. The familiar boxes of Manischewitz matzo (and matzo ball soup mix and macaroons) had a new look, and what a look! Gone was the sleepy beige and blue of the previous packaging; in its place was an arresting rusty orange, sprinkled with the harvest golds and sepia tones of a 1970s kitchen. The effect was simultaneously nostalgic and novel. It was like the design-world equivalent of matzo ball soup: comforting, warm, inviting.
The definitive name in matzo, Manischewitz was founded in 1888 by Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz, an immigrant fleeing the pogroms of Prussia. Manischewitz’s big innovation was to make matzos on an assembly line, bringing them into Jewish homes across the country. Although the brand has changed its appearance numerous times over the past 136 years, each update was built upon the look that came before it. And while its latest look incorporates some previous elements — a pop of orange has long graced Manischewitz boxes — this rebrand feels more like a rebirth.
In certain circles, Manischewitz’s transformation has hit with the force of a She’s All That-style makeover. “OMG THEY YASSIFIED MANISCHEWITZ,” screamed a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), which the Jewish food site the Nosher shared on Instagram. The sentiment perfectly captured the rebrand’s vibe. The illustrated figures on the packaging are cute and charming — they could be my friends! On the back of the matzo box, three smartly dressed generations gather around a seder table, smiling and clinking wine glasses — they could be my family! The kitschy Yiddishisms sprinkled across the packaging — “made for noshing,” “there’s bupkis like it” — drive home the schtick. If the older iterations of Manischewitz’s products (the rebrand touched everything but the wine, which is owned by Gallo) looked like they could be reliably found in the dusty recesses of bubbe’s pantry, these new ones wouldn’t be out of place in any TikTok-approved kitchen, right next to the Graza olive oil and Omsom noodles.
“The rebrand and new voice aimed to capture the essence of personality, family, [and] love of food, blended with witty observations and the head-of-the-table-type confidence Bubby would bring,” Joe Schott says via email. As senior copy editor at Jones Knowles Ritchie, the creative agency responsible for Manischewitz’s new design, Schott was responsible for creating the brand’s verbal identity. “Once we started vocalizing that and finding the formula for how Mani’z [that’s Manischewitz’s new nickname] would sound, it felt warm, inclusive, and lively,” Schott explains. “Like a dinner party full of spirited conversation that you wanted to be a part of.”
A few days after I noticed Manischewitz’s new packaging I received a press release about it. The language used by the brand’s PR team struck me as particularly telling. Rather than the typical rebrand song and dance, this felt more loaded, like Manischewitz was attempting to reintroduce not just their own look but kosher food as an entire category: “Manischewitz is set to make the kosher aisle a destination for everyone, regardless of their background or dietary practices,” the release read. “Manischewitz products are more than just food items; they are invitations to experience and participate in Jewish culture.”
The announcement ended with a quote from Shani Seidman, the chief marketing officer of Kayco, Manischewitz’s parent company: “Inspired by the inclusivity seen in brands with other cuisines, Manischewitz seeks to become the emblematic gateway to Jewish culture,” it read in part. In other words: It’s Jewish food for all.
But can a rebrand truly reimagine Jewish food (or at least a very specific kind of Jewish food, namely Eastern European Ashkenazi food) in a way that makes it appealing “for all”? Or is Jewish food so steeped in its own culture and religious customs that it can’t hope to move beyond an audience with their own cultural ties to it? And who are these non-Jews out there buying matzo, anyway? While other cuisines have found ways to move out of the so-called ethnic aisle and into the so-called mainstream — see, for example, the recent proliferation of Southeast Asian consumer packaged goods (CPG) on grocery store shelves — I wonder if we can expect the same for Jewish food.
Yes, Jewish deli culture has enjoyed something of a next-generation resurgence. But there’s a wide gap in consumer appeal between a pastrami sandwich and gefilte fish, and the artisanal rebranding of traditional Jewish foods like gefilte fish felt aimed primarily at coastal and/or urban audiences already well-versed in the cuisine. Manischewitz, by contrast, is going for folks across the country, and most of its products are also tied specifically to Passover; outside of the holiday’s context, matzo is just a sad cracker.
Seidman says Manischewitz’s core consumer is an older Jewish person who grew up with the brand at home, but their new consumers — the rebrand’s target demographic — are the grandchildren of the original audience and, notably, their (not necessarily Jewish) friends.
To appeal to these new consumers, “we went on a soul searching journey,” Seidman says. “When we took the plunge of doing this, we went into the brand identity and tried to figure out what the brand meant to the culture.” The team approached it from the perspective of “this brand is a gateway to Jewish culture through food,” she adds, echoing the press release.
Other legacy Jewish food brands are hoping to find a similar gateway to, if nothing else, greater grocery store real estate. Last year, Joyva, the 117-year-old tahini and confection maker, introduced a spruced up new look that also combines the retro and modern in an effort to straddle two different demographics.
“The new brand identity is meant to appeal to both our legacy consumers — the generational Joyva fans who associate us with family and tradition — and brand new consumers,” Joyva co-president Richard Radutzky says via email. Those new consumers didn’t necessarily grow up with Joyva, he adds, but are enticed by the “new, colorful, and welcoming packaging” to try the brand’s new products.
The underlying hope, one could say, is that the rising tide will lift all ships. “As retail brands like Joyva and Manischewitz evolve to reach new audiences, it’s possible we’ll see an expansion and growth for Jewish CPG brands just as we’ve seen over recent years in the restaurant and food service space, with places like Russ & Daughters, Zabar’s, and Katz’s,” says Farrah Bezner, Joyva’s chief marketing officer.
Though Manischewitz’s rebranding process began two years ago, the timing of this launch feels important. It’s a fraught time for many American Jews, with antisemitism steadily rising since the 2016 presidential election and skyrocketing following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces’s resulting merciless war on Gaza, which has killed 34,000 people and counting, an estimated two-thirds of whom were civilians. The Manischewitz team knew Passover would be the ideal opportunity for their launch, because this is both prime matzo time and a moment when Jewish culture is being talked about more widely outside of Jewish circles. But, Seidman says, the rebrand is also happening at a time, “when Jewishness is very charged” — which, she adds, only helps to illustrate the need for the brand’s message of Jewish food for all.
“We actually saw a resurgence of Jewish pride this year especially, and we feel like that resurgence is inspiring people to make a matzo ball soup now for Shabbat, and they’re gonna invite their friends who may not be Jewish to Shabbat dinner,” Seidman says. It’s something many Jews have done for years, but the idea of opening Shabbat tables to non-Jews has become especially prevalent within the context of the pandemic, thanks in part to super-visible content creators like Jake Cohen and Eitan Bernath.
Seidman hopes those non-Jewish friends will mean more business for Manischewitz, of course, but also that they will encourage more acceptance of and empathy for Jews. “I think that a lot of good can come out of sitting down and breaking bread with people and sharing something that’s very human,” Seidman says. “We all eat. We all know that food connects us. It’s a big unifier.” The idea that food is a unifier has its sticky points: It can, after all, just as often be a source of disagreement.
But if Manischewitz is hoping that Jewish food can be shared by everyone, it also hasn’t lost sight of its core Jewish audience. Recently, the brand began providing care packages to Jewish students on college campuses, where antisemitism is of particular concern. The outreach was the result of a longstanding partnership with Jewish campus organizations and a collaboration with JScreen, an Emory University-based genetic testing program.
“When I heard what was happening on college campuses, I felt for those students,” Seidman says. “Imagine if you’re at an institution where suddenly you don’t feel the support you need. What we want to do is bring comfort, send them care packages — the comfort of home — and say, this brand is supporting you.”
Seidman doesn’t know how far a rebrand can go in the fight against antisemitism, but says that inclusion is a step in the right direction. “The Jewish people have been trying to escape antisemitism for centuries. And I think what we’ve learned is, even when we think that we have figured it out, it rears its ugly head,” she says. “What I’m hoping this brand does more than anything is to reignite the pride in our heritage and Jewish culture in a very inclusive way.”
Stephanie Ganz is a writer and recipe developer whose work has appeared in BUST, Bon Appétit, The Kitchn, and Epicurious. She’s the author of the Substack newsletter But Wait, There’s More.
Carolyn Figel is an illustrator and animator. She currently lives in LA with her dog, Fred.
