Manischewitz - History

History

The B. Manischewitz Company, LLC was founded by Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz, in 1888 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company built a second production site in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1932, to better serve the large Jewish community of the New York metropolitan area, and the Cincinnati facility was eventually closed in 1958. In 1990 a $1 million fine was levied against the company for price fixing with its two main competitors at the time, Streit's and Horowitz. The Company went public in 1923 and remained a public corporation until it was taken private in a management buyout led by Kohlberg & Company in 1990 for $42.5 million. In 2004 its name was changed to R.A.B. Food Group, LLC and today is known as The Manischewitz Company. Manischewitz remains the world's top matzo manufacturer and one of America's top kosher brands. In the 1930s, in order to produce their products all year round, the company created the Tam-tam cracker, which looks like little matzos, according to a recent book Manischewitz: The Matzo Family, written by the founder's great-granddaughter, Laura Manischewitz Alpern. Their original product, the square matzo, revolutionized matzo-making, which until the family's production process, used to consist of rolling the matzo and trimming the edges by hand. It was also considered quite revolutionary to make matzos by machine.

On June 14, 2011, a new 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) facility was announced. Located on 80 Avenue K in the East Ward of Newark, New Jersey, it would act as both plant and corporate headquarters for The Manischewitz Company.