The AKO Mashgiach ID Card
The card is the credential a mashgiach can show an employer. It says the holder completed the AKO Mashgiach Course through an AKO-member agency, passed the exam, and was approved by that agency.
Who the Card Is For
Only mashgichim who took their agency’s own edition of the course. Foundations of Kosher Supervision does not lead to a card, and neither does the Accredited Edition. Both give you a certificate, which is a real thing, but it is not a card.
Passing the exam is not the last step. Your agency decides who is eligible, and an agency can withdraw an approval at any time.
How the Card Reaches You
Cards are printed and posted to your agency’s office. They are never sent to a private address, and that is not something we can make an exception for. Your agency hands them out in whatever way it handles that.
There is no tracking number, because professional ID cards ship without one.
The Name on Your Card
English characters only. Our printer cannot set Hebrew.
How Long Certification Lasts
Three years. Your expiry date is printed on your card and held in the mashgiach database. It is not three years from the day you finished the course, so check one of those rather than counting forward. We will remind you before it runs out.
How Kosher Certification Works
A kosher certification agency inspects a food business and, if it meets the standard, allows that business to display the agency’s symbol. The symbol is the agency’s word that the food is what it claims to be.
The person doing the day-to-day checking is the mashgiach. He works on site, watching the things that decide whether a kitchen or a plant is actually running the way the certification says it is: what comes in the door, what equipment is used for what, and what happens during service.
Agencies are independent of one another. There is no central body that certifies food, and no single authority that outranks the rest.
Where KIA Fits In
We train mashgichim. We do not certify food, we do not inspect businesses, and we do not approve anybody to supervise. Agencies do all of that, and each one decides for itself.
More than 35 agencies on five continents use our course to train their mashgichim, so that somebody trained in London and somebody trained in Houston have learned the same material to the same standard.
Two Questions We Cannot Answer
We cannot tell you whether a particular symbol is reliable, or whether one agency is stricter than another. Every AKO-member agency has met the standard to join AKO. Beyond that we take no position, and we will not be drawn into comparing them.
We cannot tell you whether a specific restaurant or product is kosher. Ask the agency whose symbol is on it.