(FORTUNE Magazine) – Talk about a built-in niche: For 3,000-odd years, Jews have kept kosher--if not year-round, then at least on the high holidays. And for the past 111 of those years, American Jews' kosher-food provider of choice has been Manischewitz, supplier of borscht, matzoh, and extra-heavy Malaga wine. Their orange and forest-green boxes line Jewish family cupboards around the country. With such exemplary brand identification, it would seem odd to fix what isn't broken. But beginning in February, Manischewitz is targeting a new market segment, one consisting of--to be perfectly blunt here--the goyim.

Aiming to compete with Progresso and Campbell's, Manischewitz is planning to launch a new line of side dishes, soups, rice pilaf dishes, and 13 flavors of matzoh, including garlic and whole wheat. "Right now, a lot of our products are associated with being bland or stale," says brand manager Dan Berkowitz, who joined the Jersey City, N.J.-based company five months ago to help with the makeover. "We want people to say, 'That's for me. Regardless of my race or religion or income, I would love to try something that's delicious and a little different. That's for me.'"

The new focus comes from the company's recently appointed president, Dennis Newnham, who commissioned market research to find out why kosher cuisine doesn't have mainstream appeal. "Over 56% of non-Jews have eaten Manischewitz products, and over 90% of them think favorably about the quality and the brand," Berkowitz says. "Now we have to change people's perceptions and make [our products] more inviting." So how do you do that when your product line includes jars of gelatinous gefilte fish? Berkowitz offers a bit of delicate brand-speak: "We're focusing on what we like to call 'appetite appeal.'" Oh.

Some of that shift will entail a change in the products' look. The drawback of the current packaging, explains container historian Thomas Hine, author of The Total Package, is that "everything about the package indicates that if you don't know what it is, you shouldn't buy it. You have to be one of The Chosen to be eligible to purchase this.... Manischewitz always seemed to me to be incredibly hard-core." The new Manischewitz, debuting early next year, should be more inviting: It will feature a cleaner typeface on boxes and more appealing close-ups of the food product, although the orange and green colors will remain. As Berkowitz explains, "The fact is, some of our products look appetizing on the boxes and some don't."

Once the image makeover is complete, the company will begin a new ad campaign to target uninitiated palates. "We're trying to find the most disciplined and methodical way to approach this particular marketing problem--uh, challenge," Berkowitz says. "We'll mostly be testing in areas with a heavy concentration of Jewish population." So no tests in, say, South Dakota, then? "Between you and me, probably not."

--Jessica Shaw