Passover Recap 2025: The Ultimate Free-From Holiday

By Arlene Mathes-Scharf Copyright ©2025

Passover Recap 2025: The Ultimate Free-From Holiday

Passover is the ultimate “free-from” holiday. With the exception of “Gebrokts” – products containing matzoh meal, such as matzoh ball mixes and cake mixes – Passover products do not contain any of the “five grains” (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, and rye). Additionally, products for the American Passover market (which is primarily Ashkenazim) do not contain “kitniot” – that is, ingredients that historically could be confused with the five grains or might have had cross contamination with the grains due to processing conditions. For example, beans, rice, soy, sesame and mustard are considered “kitniot.”

See What is kitniot and Kitniot List.

Because of the strict supervision provided to Passover products to ensure that they are free from the five grains and kitniot, Passover is an opportunity for companies to produce high-quality products that people who want or need to avoid gluten or kitniot-type items such as soy, sesame, or corn syrup will buy during the Passover season and then use all year. These products are a benefit to people with allergies. I have a friend with an allergy to corn who stocks up on many Passover-certified products to use all year. Another popular product is Passover Coca-Cola, which has a loyal following even amongst non-Jews, since it is made with sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup and is in fact closer to the original Coca Cola recipe. Passover-certified products are particularly useful for those who suffer from an allergy to soy – an ingredient that can be hard to avoid because it is in many products in the form of soy oil and soy lecithin. In addition, many Passover products have very few added chemicals, since these chemicals are not available with Passover Certification.

That said, producers of Passover products could benefit if these quality products were produced year-round and marketed to tout their “clean label” status as being free from soy, corn, and even dairy. As it is, quality Passover-certified products that are purchased for Passover are often used the rest of the year. For example, Maxwell House Coffee and Bigelow Teas retain a P on their labels year-round.

By way of example, during the summer (i.e. long after Passover), I purchased Heaven-and-Earth-brand Garlic and Onion Veggie Croutons (made from plantains) at a large kosher supermarket, and discovered that it had a Passover certification. I held onto the product, and it was enjoyed by my family in the days before Passover (when the house and car had been cleaned for Passover), on Passover, and after Passover. But we all agreed that we would eat it all year.

Passover Problems 2025

Shortage of non-Chalav-Yisroel dairy: If it came, it showed up very late. Many of the products in the Passover section were expensive.

High prices: Chalav Yisroel cottage cheese and yogurt were twice the price in Massachusetts than they were in Passaic, NJ.

Kitniot abound: Products such as Bamba containing kitniot ingredients such as corn, peanuts, soy, and sesame were prominently featured in the Passover section of supermarkets. These products sometimes say in English -- but often only in Hebrew -- that it is usable for people who eat kitniot. These products are on the shelves next to other snacks which are usable for everyone. There are also products in the Passover section of American supermarkets with a poor level of certification. For example, a popular candy that is certified for Passover by a Reform rabbi contains kitniot and possibly even chometz-derived ingredients.

Unclear Labeling: Stores received cases of Passover products that also contained non-Passover products. There was also inconsistent labeling of Passover products. Many companies use their year-round packaging for Passover products, with the labels listing year-round ingredients such as breadcrumbs, soy, and mustard flour, which are not allowed to be in a Passover product. For some products, a Passover certification was ink-jetted somewhere on the label or package with an OUP, P, or KPF, or a stick-on label with a P was placed on a case, but not on the individual products within the case. Some Israeli products have a Badatz Yerushalayim certification saying “not for Passover” and another certification saying “kosher for Passover” because Badatz Yerushalayim only certifies products for Passover where they certify all ingredients. A few years ago, I was confused by the plant code for a cottage cheese that included a P, which, it turned out, was not signifying that it was kosher for Passover. It was just part of the plant code. Products bearing a “P” or “Kosher for Passover” clearly printed on the label are easiest for the consumer to understand.

With the limited selection of products available, Passover provides the opportunity to offer high-quality, “free-from” products that consumers will want to purchase on Passover and year-round. But it needs to be clealy labeled as such.