By Rabbi Moshe Elefant, Chief Operating Officer of OU Kosher
Key takeaways:
- Data-driven certification enables agility and market growth: Advanced ingredient databases now let manufacturers instantly verify or update kosher status, helping them adapt recipes quickly to meet evolving consumer preferences — like vegan, vegetarian, and clean-label trends — while maintaining compliance.
- Kosher certification broadens appeal to health-focused consumers: Once niche, kosher labeling now attracts a wider audience — including those avoiding meat, dairy, allergens, or synthetic additives — driving an average 20% sales lift over non-certified products.
- Real-time ingredient data supports resilience amid supply and regulatory shifts: With global supply chains, tariff fluctuations, and new health regulations reshaping ingredient sourcing, access to constantly updated kosher ingredient data helps manufacturers pivot efficiently while preserving certification and consumer trust.
Data is playing an increasingly central role in food manufacturing, helping with efficiency, quality control, and adherence to standards, including those for special dietary needs that are more in demand from consumers. With many packaged foods containing long lists of ingredients, manufacturers often rely on advanced data analytics to keep track of costs, supply, and other characteristics of the ingredients.
More advanced and available data about ingredients is proving especially helpful to the growing number of companies with or seeking to obtain kosher certification, which is increasingly relevant in appealing to consumers who are vegan, vegetarian, suffer from allergies, food intolerances, or have other health interests. Due to their appeal to this audience, sales of kosher products are, on average, 20% higher than their non-certified counterparts.
While kosher certification emerged more than a century ago to meet the needs of consumers who followed Judaism’s Biblically-derived dietary laws, many of the restrictions overlap with the needs of vegetarians, vegans, and those with allergy and health concerns, with more than 12 million U.S. consumers buying kosher-certified products each year. Kosher restrictions that are helpful to this wider group of consumers include the need to clearly label products as fitting into one of three categories: meat, dairy, or parve, which contains neither meat nor dairy. Most parve products meet the needs of vegetarians and vegans, and others who avoid dairy for reasons related to allergies or health concerns. Meanwhile, kosher products labeled dairy are reassuring to those who don’t eat meat.
Digital transformation in ingredient information
In order for a product to be certified kosher, all of its ingredients must also be certified kosher. This means there is no combining of meat and dairy; no presence of forbidden items, including pork, insects, or certain types of seafood; among other restrictions. If just one ingredient or additive loses its certification, any product containing even a tiny amount of it loses its certification as well. At the same time, when an ingredient gains kosher certification, it becomes available to manufacturers of certified products who may be looking for new or alternative ingredients.
With advanced technology, tracking the status of ingredients has become easier for both food manufacturers and kosher certification agencies. For example, the Orthodox Union maintains a database of all kosher-certified ingredients globally, including those certified by selected other agencies, that food manufacturers can access. The database is constantly updated, around the clock. Any certification customer using an ingredient whose status changes is notified immediately, in real time. The database can also help guide them to certified alternatives.
Helping companies pivot
This rapid and organized flow of information also makes it much easier for companies that change their recipes in order to reach more vegan, vegetarian, or health-conscious consumers to also obtain kosher certification. In one famous example, when Oreo cookies decided in the 1990s to remove lard, an inherently not kosher ingredient because of its origins in pork, in order to appeal to health trends, it was also able to start the process of receiving kosher certification. This certification then opened up more avenues of sales, including to the many ice cream brands already certified kosher that wanted to use real Oreos.
Today, with data more accessible, food companies can move even faster to adjust ingredients. For example, Skittles candy recently received kosher certification, a process that required multiple ingredient adjustments, but happened relatively quickly thanks to the information about each ingredient being readily available to manufacturers via data sources.
Keeping up with regulatory uncertainty
The role of data in kosher certification has taken on new significance in recent months as food manufacturers face increased uncertainty in their ingredient supply chains. The continued fluctuating U.S. government policies regarding tariffs have affected many food manufacturers, with many companies that rely on global supply chains preparing to switch to alternative ingredients or suppliers. For brands that want to maintain their kosher certification, access to updated information about kosher-certified ingredients around the world is essential. This data allows companies to plan ahead and find suitable alternatives.
Many U.S.-based food companies are also more interested in moving away from synthetic dyes and other ingredients as regulators have proposed banning some of these products for health reasons, and a growing number of consumers prefer natural ingredients. With some alternatives containing animal or insect-based ingredients, those companies seeking to cater to vegans, vegetarians, or consumers who may simply be turned off by ingesting insects, can turn to the databases of kosher certification agencies to find substitutes that meet their needs.
As kosher certification becomes more established as another tool to reach and better serve health conscious consumers, more brands will likely seek it out. This process continues to become more accessible through the increased availability of data, often provided by kosher certification agencies, making it easier for manufacturers to obtain and keep their kosher certification status, even in a fast-changing world.
Rabbi Moshe Elefant is the Chief Operating Officer of OU Kosher. As an industry expert, Rabbi Elefant oversees the certification and monthly inspection of 13,000 plants in 105 countries.
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