The CRC grants certification to hundreds of retail and wholesale businesses in the United States and Canada such, as bakeries butchers, fish stores, candy stores, slaughter houses, meat processing plants, restaurants, and out-take stores.

The CRC also certifies food production around the world, sending out rabbis to inspect plants and oversee the production.

Granting kosher certification means checking the source of every ingredient to ascertain that it complies with Jewish dietary laws.

Animal derivatives are usually off limits unless, the animal was slaughtered in accordance with the laws and the item is sold as a meat product.

With ingredients produced today in every corner of the globe, tracking down each one is a formidable job.

Furthermore, the machinery on which food is produced must be kosher – that is, nothing non-kosher is allowed to touch it.

If non-kosher food was produced on the same machinery in the past, it must be purged with boiling water or blowtorching.

This is a common issue in plants that produce most of their food without kosher certification and use the CRC for only a small percentage of their production, intended for sale in heavily Jewish areas.