what does this symbol mean?

Certification marks

The seals and logos that say a product was checked by someone: kosher and halal, organic, cruelty-free, fair trade and more, and what each one certifies.

A certification mark is a check made by someone other than the maker. An organization tests the product, or the company, against a standard it publishes, and only those that pass may display its mark: the Rainforest Alliance, for example, lets farms and companies show its seal only once independent auditors have checked them. That is different from a claim a company makes about its own product. The US Food and Drug Administration points out that there are no legal definitions for “cruelty free” or “not tested on animals”, and FSC contrasts its Recycled label with general recycled claims, which require no verification.

Many of these marks are registered trademarks, among them Vegan Action’s Certified Vegan logo and IFANCA’s Crescent-M. The drawings on these pages are simplified sketches of each mark, not the certifier’s own artwork.

Kosher and halal marks 8 symbols

Organic and farming 4 symbols

Ethical and environmental 5 symbols

Dietary 2 symbols

Who checks

Ecolabel Index records who verifies each label. Rainforest Alliance Certified and Fair Trade Certified are verified by an independent organization. Leaping Bunny, Certified Humane and Certified Vegan are verified by the organization that runs the label.

Kosher and halal marks

Kosher symbols belong to certifying agencies, and STAR-K counts more than 1,400 of them around the world. As OU Kosher describes it, certification is a rabbinic agency checking a product’s ingredients, the facility and the production itself; letters beside the symbol mark dairy, meat or pareve. Halal marks work the same way: IFANCA certifies products to halal requirements, and its mark is the Crescent-M.

Organic in the US and the EU

The US and the EU each have an organic mark, the USDA seal and the EU leaf, and an equivalence arrangement lets products certified to either standard be sold as organic in both, as long as they meet its terms.

Sources

  1. What Does Rainforest Alliance Certified Mean?, Last updated 8 September 2025, Rainforest Alliance
  2. "Cruelty Free"/"Not Tested on Animals", U.S. Food and Drug Administration
  3. What do the FSC labels mean?, Forest Stewardship Council US
  4. Certification (Vegan Action), Vegan Action
  5. About IFANCA, IFANCA
  6. Ecolabel Index: Rainforest Alliance Certified, Ecolabel Index
  7. Ecolabel Index: Fair Trade Certified, Ecolabel Index
  8. Ecolabel Index: Leaping Bunny, Ecolabel Index
  9. Ecolabel Index: Certified Humane Raised and Handled, Ecolabel Index
  10. Ecolabel Index: Certified Vegan, Ecolabel Index
  11. About STAR-K, STAR-K Kosher Certification
  12. What is Kosher? (OU Kosher), OU Kosher, Orthodox Union
  13. Halal for All, IFANCA
  14. International Trade Policies: European Union, Last updated April 2025, Agricultural Marketing Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Last reviewed September 25, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research