Since we just moved from the New York City area where Kosher meat could be found nearly in every supermarket, if not the Jewish communities of Fair Lawn, Teaneck, Paramus, and Woodcliff Lake; Arizona is a special challenge!
There are a few Kosher meat companies which can be found, but the challenge is how does the meat taste? Empire, Aaron’s, David’s, and Wise Organic; each person has their preference.
For chicken, we have always bought Empire. Empire produces chicken, turkey, Cornish hens, chicken franks, turkey franks, and cold cut meats like turkey, chicken bologna, and turkey salami. Empire’s pricing for Kosher meat is affordable and you can’t tell the difference in taste. Unfortunately, Empire does not produce beef products.
We have also bought Wise organic chicken and turkey and although the taste wasn’t bad, I found the meat to be very slippery and it wasn’t for me. I went back to my comfort of Empire Kosher products.
When we want beef products, we would go to a Kosher butcher, which can be found in the Phoenix, Arizona area; it just took us three weeks to find!
In NJ, we could drive five minutes and pick up some Empire products, in Arizona, we have to drive at least thirty minutes. BUT, luckily there is a market with all the Kosher and Israeli foods that we would get in good old New Jersey.
Again, this took us three weeks to find.
So we have developed a plan; if we are driving to the Kosher market, make a list of everything we need or that we may need in a week since the drive is not a short one.
Another option is to order certain products to be delivered to our home. We did look into this and although Empire did not charge a lot for their meat, delivery cost was more than the cost of the meat!
So for now we will suck up the 30 minute drive to Phoenix to the Kosher market, and who knows, maybe enough Kifetching will bring a Kosher market closer to us in the northern suburbs.
Shabbat Shalom