A red wine being poured into a wine glass to serve. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

More than 100 vendors will participate in an interactive, all-day kosher food festival scheduled for June 28 at the Meadowlands Expo Center in Secaucus, New Jersey, that will be different from its predecessors in the sense that it will not comprise of only food tastings.

Kosherpalooza, hosted by Fleishigs Magazine and Powwow Events, will include Chopped-style cooking competitions, live cooking and mixology demonstrations, wine tasting classes, exclusive book signings with best-selling cookbook authors and panel discussions. There will also be games including blind taste tests, hot sauce contests, a wine glass challenge and a competition for People’s Choice for best new product.

Hundreds of food brands, cookbook authors, challah experts, restauranteurs, kosher food influencers, and experts will take part in the event including Kim Kushner, Levana Kirschenbaum, Naomi Ross, Paula Shoyer, Chanie Apfelbaum and Danielle Renov. On the food side, attendees will be able to sample food and beverages from hundreds of food startups, wineries and others including Dalton Winery, The Cheese Guy, Tuscanini, Jacks Gourmet, Holy Wagyu Meats, Kosher Valet, Bethel Creamery and The Nuttery.

Based on the tickets sold so far for the full-day event, which will start at 10 am and end at 6 pm, between 2,000 and 4,000 people are expected to attend, Shlomo Klein, one of the event’s organizers, told The Algemeiner. He added that the event is made for “people with a passion for food.”

Klein is the COO and publisher of the monthly print publication Fleishigs Magazine. He has been publishing food magazines for the last decade, remaining very involved in the kosher food industry during that time, and said Kosherpalooza has been in the works since January.

“On the consumer side, we always hear feedback from people that they want more food events … People are into it. They want to go out and do more than just [eat at] restaurants so to that end, we’ve been wanting to do a kosher food show for a while,” he told The Algemeiner. “And on the vendors side, a lot of the smaller vendors, they have a hard time with budgets so a lot of these shows [like Kosherfest] are not for them. The shows out there don’t always make sense for them — like a fancy food show for a small company doesn’t always make sense. So we had a lot of push from both sides to create a show and … we were like there is no time like the present  — let’s do it.”

General admission tickets are currently on sale for Kosherpalooza and Klein said that he hopes to make the food festival a yearly event.