There are a variety of options to order kosher meat online. One of the newest, The Kosher Express, has a local connection. The company ships its glatt kosher meat from a warehouse in Independence, Mo.
Robert T. Bernton is owner and president of The Kosher Express. He launched it less than a year ago, in August 2010, with the idea of providing the highest quality kosher beef and poultry online.
“We have rapidly expanded and now we sell kosher bison, lamb and duck. Everything is glatt kosher and business is picking up and it’s wonderful,” said Bernton from the company’s main headquarters in Aurora, Colo.
As a new business, Bernton said the customer base is still small.
“We’ve reached our 800th sale, which is great and a lot of those customers are repeat customers,” he said. In fact he believes more than 35 percent of his customers are repeat customers.
He believes a fine product and good customer service will continue to keep customers returning to The Kosher Express as well as impress new customers.
“Our website (www.TheKosherExpress.com) is very easy to use. We walk customers through the actual order to the confirmation letter we send explaining when the order will ship to the final invoice where we tell the exact price of the product,” Bernton said.
Prices on the Web are estimates, Bernton explained, until the final cost of the order is calculated based on the actual weight.
“Ultimately when they receive the product they are happy and enjoy the product. We stress our quality and hope they will come back to us,” he said.
The Kosher Express ships from an Independence warehouse because orders can be received on either coast within three days.
“A lot of our online competitors require second-day shipping or higher to make sure the product gets there safe. We can provide ground shipping in three days or less,” he said.
Meat is supplied from all over the country including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and California.
One thing that sets The Kosher Express apart from its competitors, Bernton said, is it has access to kosher bison, lamb and duck.
“A lot of people really like our kosher bison and lamb products. It’s very hard in the kosher world to find bison. I am only aware of one supplier that offers it, and that’s something really unique about this company,” Bernton said.
Bernton believes one of the reasons bison is so popular today is that a lot of people think bison is healthier than beef.
Because of its popularity, it’s been hard to keep kosher bison in stock, he said.
“With the rise in demand, there has also been a national shortage that is especially pronounced in the kosher industry. Much of this is due to the fact that bison calves take about three years to reach maturity, and so the supply lags greatly behind the demand,” he explained.
The company has begun advertising, including placing an ad in The Chronicle this week. But Bernton believes most of his customers have found the company simply by searching the Web. Those customers, he said, have spread the word to their friends.
Another way The Kosher Express hopes to expand its business is through a partnership it has established with congregations and Jewish organizations called Tzedek Express. The Kosher Express gives its partners a portion of the sale anytime a special promotional code assigned to that particular organization is used.
“It’s really our way to give back to organizations and the Jewish community in general,” Bernton said. “That’s also helped us spread the word around.”
Bernton didn’t grow up in a kosher home and didn’t start keeping kosher until he visited Israel on a USY trip.
“When I came back to the States I told my parents keeping kosher was something that I wanted to start doing and I’ve kept kosher since then,” said the Denver native.
He attended Emory University in Atlanta, where he was surprised to find there was no kosher meal plan.
“I thought that was strange because 30 percent of the student population was Jewish,” he said.
Because keeping kosher was important to Bernton, he worked with the university’s Hillel and the campus food service to provide a kosher meal plan. He said it was a very difficult task, but as a freshman he succeeded in getting a kosher meal offered once a week.
Bernton stayed connected with Emory’s Hillel for the remainder of his college years, ultimately serving as president. When he graduated in 2009, armed with a degree in marketing and business communications, he wanted to combine his passion for Jewish life and kosher food with his business background.
Because he had a hard time purchasing kosher food as a college student — he didn’t have his own car until his junior year — he conceived The Kosher Express. He liked the idea of having fine kosher meat delivered right to his doorstep.
“As I worked with mentors and other people, we came up with this idea to launch a national company to offer the highest quality kosher everywhere,” he said.
But this didn’t happen overnight. He needed to find a supplier, and the funding, so he took a job at a marketing firm in Westchester, N.Y.
“I wanted to make sure that any supply we had was constant so people could know exactly what to expect from the company,” he said.
He also wanted to make sure the meat was high quality, antibiotic and hormone free and vegetarian fed.
“Some people who are going to buy kosher meat online don’t have ready access to kosher meat. But others are looking for a higher quality of kosher product and there is really not a lot of kosher meat that’s really high quality on the market today,” he said.
About a year after graduation, he made a friend who also happened to be in the kosher supply business.
“I was able to tell him about my idea and what sort of products we wanted to see,” he said.
That was in February 2010 and over the next six months they worked hard to create the operation and get the investors to pay for building the website, purchase the initial inventory and launch the company. He continued to work at the marketing firm until October when he began focusing his full-time efforts on The Kosher Express.