| Hechsher of Organized Kashrut Laboratories | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Certifying agency | Organized Kashrut Laboratories |
| Founded | 1935 |
| Headquarters | 391 Troy Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11213 U.S. |
| Key People |
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| Website | ok.org |
OK Kosher Certification is a major kosher certification agency based out of Brooklyn, NY. It is one of the "Big Five," the five largest kosher certifying agencies in the United States. OK also has a large kosher presence in Asia.
In 1935, Abraham Goldstein founded Organized Kashrut Laboratories (OK Labs) to meet the American Jewish community's need for Kosher food products.
In 1968, Rabbi Bernard Levy purchased OK Labs. He was already involved in kosher certification several years prior to the purchase. At the time, it was certifying a relatively small number of companies, but under his leadership, the organization began to grow, certifying companies internationally. Rabbi Levy instituted several improvements in the methods employed by kosher certifying agencies to verify the nature of products. Until then, many ingredients of products were assumed to be kosher, without visiting the company of each one. His policy was to travel to each company to see how the production was done first-hand. This led him to further investigate other companies, as many ingredients were composed of other sub-ingredients. As the organization grew, and the workload increased, Rabbi Levy's son, Rabbi Don Yoel Levy, [1] joined the OK to help expand the organization. [2]
After the death of Rabbi Bernard Levy in 1987, his son Rabbi Don Yoel Levy assumed leadership of the organization. [3] Upon Rabbi Don Yoel Levy’s death in 2020, the Executive Rabbinical Council took responsibility of the OK. [4]
With more than 10 million consumers seeking kosher products in the United States alone, the kosher food industry has seen rapid growth in the past two decades, with sales reaching $165 billion in 2002. [5] Today the OK Certifies over 140,000 products, produced by over 1500 companies worldwide, including food giants such as Kraft, Snapple, and ConAgra. It employs over 350 Rabbis worldwide. [6]
Besides giving Kosher Certification, the OK actively promotes education and observance of kosher laws and attitudes. There are many books written on the subject, while most popular are the Kosher approved recipes. [7]
Its headquarters are in Brooklyn, New York, with offices in Europe and Israel. [8] The OK holds an annual Mashgichim conference at the Jewish Children's Museum. [9] In 2014, OK Kosher won the rights to the .kosher domain name. [10] In 2015, Kehilla Kosher from Los Angeles merged with OK Kosher. [11] The agency often expands its supervision of restaurants, mainly located in New York. [12]
Kashrut is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher, from the Ashkenazi pronunciation of the term that in Sephardic or Modern Hebrew is pronounced kashér, meaning "fit". Food that may not be consumed, however, is deemed treif, also spelled treyf.
A hechsher or hekhsher is a rabbinical product certification, qualifying items that conform to the requirements of Jewish religious law.
A mashgiach or mashgicha is a Jew who supervises the kashrut status of a kosher establishment. Mashgichim may supervise any type of food service establishment, including slaughterhouses, food manufacturers, hotels, caterers, nursing homes, restaurants, butchers, groceries, or cooperatives. Mashgichim usually work as on-site supervisors and inspectors, representing a kosher certification agency or a local rabbi, who actually makes the policy decisions for what is or is not acceptably kosher. Sometimes certifying rabbis act as their own mashgichim; such is the case in many small communities.
Kosher wine is wine that is produced in accordance with halakha, and more specifically kashrut, such that Jews will be permitted to pronounce blessings over and drink it. This is an important issue, since wine is used in several Jewish ceremonies, especially those of Kiddush.
Kosher foods are foods that conform to the Jewish dietary regulations of kashrut. The laws of kashrut apply to food derived from living creatures and kosher foods are restricted to certain types of mammals, birds and fish meeting specific criteria; the flesh of any animals that do not meet these criteria is forbidden by the dietary laws. Furthermore, kosher mammals and birds must be slaughtered according to a process known as shechita and their blood may never be consumed and must be removed from the meat by a process of salting and soaking in water for the meat to be permissible for use. All plant-based products, including fruits, vegetables, grains, herbs and spices, are intrinsically kosher, although certain produce grown in the Land of Israel is subjected to other requirements, such as tithing, before it may be consumed.
The Orthodox Union is one of the largest Orthodox Jewish organizations in the United States. Founded in 1898, the OU supports a network of synagogues, youth programs, Jewish and Religious Zionist advocacy programs, programs for the disabled, localized religious study programs, and international units with locations in Israel and formerly in Ukraine. The OU maintains a kosher certification service, whose circled-U hechsher symbol, U+24CAⓊCIRCLED LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U, is found on the labels of many kosher commercial and consumer food products.
In kashrut, the dietary laws of Judaism, pareve is a classification of edible substances that contain neither dairy nor meat ingredients. Food in this category includes all items that grow from the ground, fish, eggs, and non-biological edible items.
Hebrew National is a brand of kosher hot dogs and sausages made by ConAgra Foods. In 1982, Hebrew National opened a non-kosher division under the name National Deli; it was sold off in 2001, and is now based in Florida.
Rabbi Bernard (Berel) Levy was a pioneer of Kosher certification in the United States.
Triangle K is a kosher certification agency under the leadership of Rabbi Aryeh R. Ralbag. It was founded by his late father, Rabbi Yehosef Ralbag. The hechsher is a letter K enclosed in an equilateral triangle.
Kashruth Council of Canada, is a kosher certification agency in Canada. It is best known for its kosher supervision service, with the COR symbol found on the labels of many commercial and consumer food products. The council serves 1,000 facilities that provide 70,000 products to Canadian consumers. As of September 2014, COR employs 70 full-time and part-time mashgichim who work in local food service and catering venues, plus approximately 30 mashgichim worldwide who supervise COR-certified manufacturing plants. COR supervises food at event venues such as the Rogers Centre, the Air Canada Centre and the Toronto Zoo. In total, COR certifies 53 restaurants in Toronto. COR, in conjunction with Liaison Culinary College, has a college accredited training program for its mashgichim.
Magen Tzedek, originally known as Hekhsher Tzedek, is a complementary certification for kosher food produced in the United States in a way that meets Jewish Halakhic (legal) standards for workers, consumers, animals, and the environment, as understood by Conservative Judaism. Magen Tzedek certification is not a kashrut certification which certifies that food is kosher in that it meets certain requirements regarding ingredients of food and technical methods of animal slaughter, but an ethical certification complementary to conventional kosher certification.
Star-K Kosher Certification, also known as the Vaad Hakashrut of Baltimore, is a kosher certification agency based in Baltimore, Maryland, under the administration of Rabbi Moshe Heinemann, with the involvement of many other rabbis. It is one of the largest Jewish dietary certification agencies in North America. It is trusted by many Orthodox Jews worldwide for dedication to preserving Kashrut. The organization supervises tens of thousands of commercial food products and food establishments around the world.
The Central Rabbinical Congress is a rabbinical organization that is a consortium of various Haredi Jewish groups, with offices in Brooklyn, New York.
The "Kosher tax" is the idea that food companies and unwitting consumers are forced to pay money to support Judaism or Zionist causes and Israel through the costs of kosher certification. The claim is a conspiracy theory, antisemitic canard, or urban legend.
A kosher certification agency is an organization or certifying authority that grants a hechsher to ingredients, packaged foods, beverages, and certain materials, as well as food-service providers and facilities in which kosher food is prepared or served. This certification verifies that the ingredients, production process including all machinery, and/or food-service process complies with the standards of kashrut as stipulated in the Shulchan Arukh, the benchmark of religious Jewish law. The certification agency employs mashgichim to make periodic site visits and oversee the food-production or food-service process in order to verify ongoing compliance. Each agency has its own trademarked symbol that it allows manufacturers and food-service providers to display on their products or in-store certificates; use of this symbol can be revoked for non-compliance. Each agency typically has a "certifying rabbi" who determines the exact kashrut standards to be applied and oversees their implementation.
Seal-K Kosher is a kosher certification organization. The organization provides kosher supervision and certification for commercial kitchens, in addition to certifications for food production and shaatnez testing. The organization has its office in Chicago in 2021.
Kosher Australia is the largest Australian based kosher certification agency. As of 2018 they had certified over 500 companies both in Australia and abroad. It was initially called Mizrachi Kashrut, followed by Melbourne Kashrut before becoming Kosher Australia in 2004.
Orthodox Union Kosher, known as OU Kosher or OUK, is a kosher certification agency based in New York City. It was founded in 1923 by Abraham Goldstein. It is the certification agency of about 70% of kosher food worldwide, and is the largest of the "Big Five" major certification agencies, which include OK, Kof-K, Star-K, and CRC.
.kosher is a generic top-level domain owned by OK Kosher Certification. The filing of the application for the domain in January 2012 began a two-year process during which eleven other kosher certification agencies filed official objections, arguing that granting the application would give OK Kosher an unfair competitive advantage. In January 2014, ICANN ruled that OK Kosher could begin using the .kosher domain, after which the eleven objectors filed for reconsideration.