Is a kosher certificate also valid for Passover?

No. A standard Emet certificate attests year-round kosher status and says nothing about chametz, about kitniyos, or about fitness for the festival — the certificate itself prints that line. Passover is a certification of its own, with its own application and its own certificate.

How long is a Passover certificate valid?

It ends with the festival it was granted for, not twelve months from issue. A Passover certificate covers production for one named season, and a run made outside that window is not covered by it.

When should a producer start?

Before the changeover is planned, not after. Passover requires an inventory of every line, vessel and shared utility proposed for use, a determination on each, and in most cases cleaning and kashering under supervision — none of which can be arranged at short notice.

Passover

Kosher for Passover is a certification of its own

A year-round kosher certificate says nothing about the festival. Passover has its own application, its own evaluation, its own certificate, and a validity that ends when the festival does — because what it certifies is a production window, not a company.

What it is not

A standard Emet certificate attests that the listed products are kosher year-round. It says nothing about chametz, nothing about kitniyos, and nothing about fitness for Passover — the certificate prints that line on its own face. Nobody may state or imply that a product certified under a standard certificate is kosher for Passover, and no P, KP or Hebrew equivalent goes beside the mark on the strength of one.

Passover is applied for separately and evaluated separately. Holding a year-round certificate does not shorten it, though it means Emet already knows the plant.

What it asks of a producer

Chametz. Every material, processing aid and carrier is declared against what it is made from, not what it does — the botanical source, the producer and the producing plant. Grain derivatives reach a plant in places nobody looks: an anti-caking agent, a flavour carrier, a release oil.

Kitniyos. Which policy applies is the Rav HaMachshir’s ruling, and no member of Emet’s staff may state one. What matters commercially is that it reaches much further than its name suggests: glucose, starch, lecithin, dextrose, maltodextrin, modified starch, emulsifiers, sorbitol and many anti-caking and release agents are commonly corn- or soy-derived, and a single carrier inside a purchased flavour can pull a whole product into the question.

Equipment, changeover and kashering. Before the determination, the office receives a written inventory of everything proposed for Passover use — every line, vessel, pipe run, pump, filler, hopper, sieve, mixer, oven, fryer, heat exchanger, filter housing, conveyor and shared utility. For each: its recorded year-round status, its last use, whether that use was hot or cold, whether it has ever run chametz or kitniyos, whether it is dedicated or shared, and anything on it that cannot be dismantled, drained or inspected. Kashering, where it is required, happens under supervision.

Segregation and records. Passover material is segregated from the changeover onwards, and the run is recorded so that what was made, when, and on what can be shown afterwards. Nullification is not a route to conformity here or anywhere else in this scheme — that is a flat prohibition, and it applies with full force to chametz and to kitniyos.

The P mark, and two things to plan around

P means Passover. It never means pareve. The variants and what each one asserts are drawn on the mark page; a P belongs only to product made under a Passover certificate, for the season it covers.

Two properties of the artwork are stated here rather than left to be discovered, because both cost money to discover late:

The P file names its season, and nothing takes it back. A Passover file carries the Hebrew year of the festival it covers in its own identifier — EMETP_POS_FULL_5787_v1 — and one generated without a season is refused outright, so the file you hold says on its face which Pesach it was issued for and last season’s cannot be mistaken for this season’s. What no system does is take a delivered file back: a copy sitting on a printer’s server stays readable. Controlling which file reaches a print run is therefore still the holder’s duty, and it is a duty a name on the file makes possible rather than one it removes.

There is no combined mark. A product on a Passover certificate takes the bare P and only the P — so where that product is dairy or meat, the mark does not carry it. A bare P does not go on a dairy or a meat pack without the fact being said in the label copy, and how such a pack is marked is settled with the office in writing before print.

Where this stands today

Emet certifies Passover, and an application may be put to the office now and will be answered. One thing is outstanding and is stated plainly rather than left for a producer to find out at the wrong moment: no Passover certificate can be drafted or issued until the Rav HaMachshir has decided the wording a Passover certificate prints — what it says about chametz, about kitniyos and about the production window — and at this revision he has not been asked.

There is no projected date for that decision and none is implied here. If you are planning a season, ask the office where it stands before committing print, packaging or a customer date to it. That is the honest answer, and it is the same answer Emet’s own requirements document gives.

Apply, or ask the office about a season · The requirements in full