Red Boat Fish Sauce, Pesach, and... Hezkat Kashrut?

Pesach
1

Dear Ohel Torah Team:

For a few years, the Red Boat fish sauce company of Vietnam had a product that was not only certified kosher but was K4P! The ingredients were only salt and wild-caught anchovies.

When I recenlty went to order some for Pesach, I noticed that the kosher version was not available for order on the website. I wrote the company and got this sad but not uncommon news:

Hi Dov,

Thank you for your interest in our Kosher Fish Sauce. We have discontinued our Kosher-certified Fish Sauce product line as it was too costly to maintain the certification. Our 40N Fish Sauce contains the same ingredients as our Kosher Fish Sauce, it just does not go through the Kosher certification process.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Thank you,

Dorothy

With it’s two ingredients of salt and anchovies, is this non-certified line kosher (it is made in Vietnam)?

(See it here at Fish Sauce 40°N – Red Boat Fish Sauce)

Also, though this is a product made overseas, is this a case of Hezkat Kashrut, since (at least according to the company) they did not “lose” the hashgacha with some kashrut violation but simply stopped paying for certification? Or is Hezkat Kashrut something that does not apply to companies, but rather only to individual Jews?

Lastly, the product was previously certified Kosher for Passover. Is it still kosher for Passover?

Thanks for all you do to make Kashrut and Kashrut for Pesach mtizvot that are “Darchei Noam”.
-Dov

2

Pulling kosher certification for this reason is common.

I don’t think we can say the have a Hezkat Kashrut but if they are inporting to the USA, they are subject to our regulations. We can work with that.

The status is still kosher for passover.

3

Thank you!