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, inspect businesses, or approve anybody to supervise. Agencies do all of that, and each one decides for itself.
43 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.
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.
We cannot tell you whether a specific restaurant or product is kosher. Ask the agency whose symbol is on it.
