'Kosher Chicken Index' highlights the cost of Jewish living
The price that the UK's Jewish community is paying for kosher foods has been showcased at this year's Limmud, an event dedicated to Jewish learning.
"We built a 'Kosher Chicken Index' - a basket of goods reflecting products that Jews are likely to buy in order to lead a Jewish lifestyle - and compared the prices with non-Jewish equivalents," they said in an online article on The Jewish Chronicle.
"We found that living Jewishly in the UK can have an annual cost premium of £12,700 per family."
A significant contributor to these extra expenses is said to be the cost of food. When comparing the costs of London kosher butcher and delicatessen chain Kosher Deli with Tesco for five products - whole chicken, minced beef, whole turkey, diced beef and chicken thighs - it was revealed that the price of kosher meats was on average double that of regular supermarket meat.
For example, the cost of a whole chicken at Kosher Deli is £4.19, compared to Tesco Value chicken at £2.48.
Images courtesy of the Jewish Chronicle
This also has a bearing on the cost of eating out, with kosher Indian or Chinese restaurants being 70% more expensive than equivalent non-kosher restaurants.
Data collected from the economists showed that kosher meat prices doubled in the last decade, compared to non-kosher meat prices, which have risen by 40%.
