All you need to know about the Kosher certification

Hundreds of corporations making thousands of food products, along with scores of ingredients and packaging producers, have been awarded certification.Rabbi Cohen’s organization is the Committee for the Advancement of Torah Observance, Symbols and letters, indicating that an Orthodox Rabbi, or group of Rabbis, has found an item to be kosher, can also be seen, usually printed unobtrusively on numbers and sometimes mentioned in advertising. The kosher K certification has been awarded to such products as Sealtest liquid, Dr. Pepper soft drinks, and Grape-Nut Flakes breakfast grain.

Some products declare that they are kosher, without using any identifying badge, as do certain restaurants and catering enterprises. Virtually all airlines will provide kosher food, for example, to customers who request it in advance. Many of these clients, it has been observed are not Jewish, but do prefer kosher refreshments to the regular airline variety. When a company calls on Rabbi Cohen’s board, through its Kosher Certification, it incurs a charge for the services of the inspecting rabbis. None of the certifying agencies will disclose what the charge is or what gross revenues are, nor are corporations anxious to make their payments public.

Rabbi Cohen, an Orthodox Rabbi that was born in the United States and crammed in Poland before World War II, has been a “mashgiach” – or “watcher” of food’s kosher ness – for 15 years. When he talks about his job, he speaks as both a spiritual leader and a man who immediately understands what food processing is all about. “You have to have an absolute knowledge of food technology and food chemistry,” he said regarding the 40 Rabbis who work for his organization either full-time or part-time. “If you’re not up-to-date on these characters, you can be most knowledgeable on Jewish law but not equipped to do this work. The inspecting Rabbis scrutinize not only ingredients used but also the method by which a product is made. Their aim is to ensure purity of supply, and they are as likely to check purchasing records or interview employees, as they are to make an “eyeball” inspection.

Some certified products may be manufactured, for example, in a factory that handles only kosher items and relatively few reviews are scheduled. Others may be prepared at a location where non-kosher as well as kosher foods are designed, necessitating frequent visits. The origins, significance, and details of “kashruth” – the Hebrew noun from which the adjective kosher is derived – are complex.

Why do companies seek arms like the kosher K on their products? The primary reason is that such an identification gives them a key selling point in transferring the 5.7 million American Jews – particularly the strict observers who just will not purchase non-kosher items. Also, many Seventh Day Adventists and other religious groups believe in certain aspects of the Jewish dietary laws and look for the two symbols before buying. “We believe that there is a particular segment of the population that looks to it as an indication of quality food,” said William Kittredge, director of quality control of Hunt-Wesson Foods, of the Kosher stamp. “Without it, one phase of the market is not available to us,” added J.B. Stine, a vice president of Kraft Foods.
If a rabbi examines a Carvel unit and obtains a non-kosher ingredient in the product mix, he notifies the corporate management, which dispatches the public to the store owner:

Some criticism has been raised that the amount of Kosher Certification Cost – plus the cost of running a plant partially or wholly in keeping with the dietary laws – adds to a number of the certified meals paid by all consumers. The response from marketers of these outcomes is that certification, like advertising, boosts sales, lowers the manufacturing cost per unit and thereby reduces prices. As Richard A. Jacobs – president of the Joseph Jacobs Organization, an advertising agency specializing in the Jewish market put it: “Certification helps businesses gain additional business, so it doesn’t increase prices.”

Rabbi Cohen, dressed in dark black clothes and sporting a full beard, cuts an imposing figure. He inspects plants that turn out consumer foods or the components that go into them, whether in Europe or Asia or anyplace in the United States. Much of his time is spent traveling.

The other day, for example, Rabbi Cohen was in NJ, inspecting the operations there of PVO International, Inc., a manufacturer of stabilizers and emulsifiers sold to the food trade. PVO uses tallow (a non-kosher animal fat) and vegetable oils as other raw materials in certain food additives it makes – and therefore an investigation by a rabbi is needed to receive kosher certification. What he observed for at this company was that the equipment remained empty for 24 hours after tallow was practiced, then was filled with boiling water to clean it thoroughly. After the water flowed through the entire system, the use of the vegetable oils to comply with kosher certification was approved.

“Kosher supervision today is somewhat complicated,” said Rabbi Cohen. “We must know the highly secret formulas of synthetic flavorings, as well as who is marketing and buying from whom.” If a company decides to use the official designation, it tends to be severe about compliance. In any case, Federal and state laws are governing the utilization of the word kosher in food product labeling.