You are here: Home | Judaism | Kashrut | Hechsherim

Hechsherim

Kashrut has become big business in our modern world. There are organizations all over the world that certify foods as kosher—I have heard that there are as many as 400. The majority of these organizations work on a local level, certifying local restaurants and bakeries close to Jewish communities. On the other hand, some of these organizations are nationally or internationally active.

Kashrut is such big business that a large portion of the food in the average American pantry is likely already kosher. How can you tell? Well, each kashrut organization has developed a symbol, called a hechsher, that they allow manufacturers to place on products to show consumers that the organization has certified those products as kosher. All you have to know is what symbols to look for.

I have chosen 16 of the most common symbols and listed them here for you. You will find these symbols on everything from cereal to candy bars. The most common places you will find a hechsher are 1) on the front of the package below the logo, 2) on one of the bottom front corners, 3) near the list of ingredients or 4) on the top (lid) of the package. You may have to look carefully, though, since the symbols can be very small and may be placed just about anywhere on the package.

Not a Hechsher

Before we get to the hechsherim, though, I want to point out a few symbols that you will see on packaging that are not hechsherim. Some people have asked me before about the ®, ™, and © symbols. The ® symbol denotes that an item on the packaging, such as the company logo, has been registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as a company trademark. The ™ symbol, on the other hand, shows that an item on the label is a company trademark, but that it has not been registered with the USPTO. The © symbol designates that an item (such as a literary work, a musical piece, a picture or other graphical work, or an architectural work) has been copyrighted, thus prohibiting people from using it without the copyright holder’s permission.

As you can guess, the only reason you would see a © symbol on a food package is if the company's logo or another image on the package is copyrighted (I have never heard a cereal box sing or seen a can of tuna do a dance...). A note of interest: The hechsherim below are all trademarks of their certifying organizations, and their use on food products is protected by trademark laws.

Another important fact to note is that a “K” by itself on a package is not a hechsher. The letter K is not a trademark-able symbol, and companies often place it on their packages thinking that it is an easy way to avoid paying for certification and still make money from the kosher-eating public. The only two exceptions to this rule are sodas made by Pepsi and Kellogg’s cereals, both of which are kosher if they bear a “K” on the packaging.

The Symbols

The OU symbol is the most well-known and widely-used hechsher in the world. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations is the certifying agency, and their web site has a lot of great information on following kashrut. The ubiquity of this hechsher leads to its misuse by companies on a fairly regular basis. To mitigate this issue, the OU releases kashrut alerts to consumers by e-mail and works hard to protect its trademark.

 

The Star-K hechsher is also very prevalent, and the Star-K’s web site is also a great repository of kashrut information, including up-to-date lists of kosher alcohol, beverages, medicines, and other items.

 

Star-D is a hechsher developed specifically for National Council of Young Israel. Star-K oversees the certification of Star-D products, all of which are dairy, cholov stam (not cholov yisroel).

 

The Kashruth Council of Canada provides the COR hechsher. It is most common to see it with a number underneath the COR. This number is a notation of the registered manufacturing facility, which allows the Council to more easily track the food it certifies. According to the company, processed food with the COR and no number should raise a kosher consumer's suspicions.

 

Triangle K Kosher Certification and Supervision.

 

KOF-K Kosher Supervision

 

Chicago Rabbinical Council

 

Vaad Hakashrus of Denver (Scroll K)

 

Vaad Hakashrus of Dallas (DK)

 

Kosher Overseers (KOAOA)

 

Kosher Supervision of America (KSA)

 

The Organized Kashrus Laboratories (OK)

 

Igud HaKashrus of Los Angeles, a.k.a. Kehilla Kosher

 

Vaad Ha’ir of Winnipeg

 

Natural Food Certifiers

Other Notations

You may have noticed that there are sometimes words or letters next to hechsherim. The four such markings you are most likely to see are:

• Meat: This notation is usually placed on items that you might think are not meat, such as a frozen soup, so that there is no confusion that the food does contain meat.
• D: This marking denotes a food that is considered to be dairy. It is often placed on items that have whey or other dairy-derived ingredients, some of which, such as margarine, you might think contain no dairy at all. It is also important to note that just because an item does not contain dairy ingredients does not mean that the D has been added inadvertently. Food that is processed on the same equipment as a dairy counterpart is sometimes considered to be dairy itself, since the equipment is not kashered for the different uses. These items will sometimes have DE on them instead, and, according to halachah, they may be eaten after a meat meal, but not during a meat meal.
• Pareve: This is a Yiddish term for food that is not considered to be either meat or dairy. It is most often used on items that could be confused for a dairy or meat counterpart, such as a vegetable soup that you might mistake for a meat soup, or a margarine that actually has no dairy products in it.
• P: This marking denotes that an item is kosher for Passover. Don’t get it mixed up with the pareve marking above.

Closing Notes

As you can see, kashrut certification is a pretty big business, and the certification organizations are doing us a big favor by making sure that the food we eat has been proven to be proper and fitting for our consumption. The industry has some issues, however, most notably 1) the politics that have turned organizations against each other, and 2) the lax standards and hypocrisy of some kashrut organizations. I don’t feel that it is necessary to go into these issues here, but I do look forward to the day when eating kosher will not be marred by such petty and irresponsible issues.

Whatever approach you take to kashrut, I hope that my explanation of these kosher symbols has been useful and helpful to you. Two other hechsher lists that are much more in-depth can be found at Kashrut.com and Kosher Quest. If you ever have a question about a symbol that you can’t figure out, please feel free to drop me a line and I will do my best to find out about it for you.