How do you go about selecting the right kosher certification that will satisfy your company’s particular needs?
Unless you are a local retail establishment whose kosher certification needs are best satisfied by the local rabbinical council, you are about to undergo a bewildering journey of trying to compare the merits of several different certifications. All kosher certification organizations are not identical!

It is most important that you go about this process in the same manner that you would to choose an attorney, a financial consultant or a key employee. In short, do your homework! Asking the right questions and exploring all the options available in kosher certification may very likely spare your company an experience that can turn out to be a very unpleasant and expensive mistake.

In the beginning….
Before you begin the task of interviewing and studying the pros and cons of individual certification agencies (the same is true even if you already have a certification and would like to consider a change), you need to understand that a reputable organization will not certify your company’s products based solely on their trust of your company.

Among many other things, the kosher certification agency requires:
• plant visitations,
• extensive review of formulas and equipment,
• details regarding the sources of your raw materials,
• the right to audit documents pertaining to kosher matters.

Expecting the kosher agency to issue a certification based on “trust” is unrealistic. In fact, if an individual Rabbi or agency offers a certification based only on written communications, you ought to immediately suspect that such a certification is unlikely to grant you broad acceptability, since other reputable agencies will be unlikely to recognize the validity of such a certification. This in turn may necessitate your beginning the entire procedure of obtaining a certification again. Obviously, an unwelcome prospect.