What Emet certifies

A certificate covers a set of named product lines, each carrying named brands, made at one identified facility. That is the whole object. It is not a company, not a brand and not a premises.

Certification is granted per facility. The same product made at a second plant is a separate evaluation and a separate certificate, and an ingredient approved for one plant does not travel to another. This is enforced in the data, not only in the rules: a certificate carries exactly one facility, and a certified product line is pinned to it.

It is also the answer to the question exporters ask. What a buyer abroad is shown is a plant and the products made there, checkable by the number printed on the certificate at the moment they ask, with no account and without being asked who they are.

Every certified product carries exactly one classification. Pareve — neither meat nor dairy. Dairy. Meat, which includes poultry.

The classification is the thing most likely to be wrong in a way that reaches a shelf: a mark with no letter beside it is the pareve claim, so a dairy line classified by default is a recall rather than a typo. Emet classifies every product itself, from the evidence, and never adopts a declaration.

Certified. Meat is a first-class classification, the meat mark is drawn, and Glatt and Beis Yosef are granted on a meat certification. The act of slaughter is supervised as part of the production of a certified meat facility.

What a meat file carries is a heavier supervision requirement, set for that file by the Rav HaMachshir — including that a slaughter is supervised by somebody he is satisfied is qualified for it. Where Emet cannot staff that particular job, it says so on that application, in writing, with its reason.

Certified. These are governed by distinct halachic rules that turn on who handles the product, and at what stage of its production — which is why the supervision a wine file requires is determined per file by the Rav HaMachshir rather than by a standing rule written in advance.

Grape matters beyond wine itself, and it is worth saying to producers who do not think of themselves as being in the wine trade: grape seed oil is a common carrier, and grape-derived alcohol, glycerine and tartaric acid turn up as processing aids. If any of them is in your process, say so at application.

Certified. A kitchen, a caterer or a retail bakery is recorded as a facility, and its dishes or lines as its certified products — the same object of certification as a factory.

One limit is stated plainly because it affects what may be displayed: what is certified is the named production of a named site, not the premises as such. A claim about the premises rather than about the food would exceed what the certificate says.

Certified in their own right. A material sold to another manufacturer to put into their product is an eligible object, and this is often the more demanding file of the two — because whoever buys it will rely on your certificate for their own.

The normal case, not an exception. The brand owner and the plant are routinely different companies, and a certificate names both.

The scheme provides three suppressions, and their real position is stated here rather than left to be discovered. An individual brand label can be withheld — but only when the brand is first recorded; it cannot be added or lifted afterwards. Withholding a whole product line, or the facility itself, is provided for in the scheme and cannot presently be given effect: no screen sets either flag, so in practice both are off.

So do not build a private-label arrangement on the assumption that your co-packer will be absent from the public register. Ask the office in writing at application, and treat nothing as withheld until you have that answer in writing. Where a suppression does apply, the certificate itself lists everything in full and the register says the line or the site is withheld — it never pretends there is none.

A designation sits beside the classification and never replaces it. All nine are offered, including the six that require supervision of the production act itself.

Cholov Yisroel

Milk supervised from the milking. Dairy products only.

Cholov Stam

The other dairy standard. Dairy products only.

Pas Yisroel

Baking performed with the required participation.

Bishul Yisroel

Cooking performed with the required participation.

Yoshon

Grain from a harvest before the relevant Passover.

Glatt

Meat only.

Beis Yosef

Meat only.

Dairy Equipment

A product with no dairy in it, made on a line that also runs dairy. Pareve products only.

Kitniyos Free

Free of the legumes, rice, corn and their derivatives that the kitniyos question covers.

Each declares which classifications it may sit beside, and that is enforced: Glatt and Beis Yosef only on meat, Dairy Equipment only on pareve, the cholov standards only on dairy. A designation is granted on a certification when the Rav HaMachshir has authorised it for that file and the supervision it requires is staffed for that facility. If your market needs one, say which at application — it changes what the evaluation involves.

A certification of its own: separate application, separate certificate, and a validity that ends with the festival rather than twelve months from issue. A year-round certificate says nothing about it. What Passover certification involves.

Fish. The product classification model records pareve, dairy and meat, and holds no fish status — so a fish claim can be carried on a supplier’s letter but cannot travel to a certified product or produce a fish mark. Declare fish content all the same, at application and on every change: the determination turns on it even where no mark can carry it.

Emet declines an application it cannot staff — on the file in front of it, in writing, with the reason. It does not decline a class of work in advance, and it improvises no substitute for supervision it cannot provide.

Apply, or ask the office · How supervision works · What it requires of you