Is Pocky halal?
Pocky does not have one halal answer, because Ezaki Glico makes or licenses it in several countries and each market's recipe and certification differ. The Chocolate and Strawberry sticks sold in the US list no gelatin, animal enzyme or alcohol, with a vegetable oil shortening, so the ingredients read as halal-suitable, though the US box carries no certification mark. Pocky sold in Indonesia is certified separately by MUI. Thailand and Malaysia we could not confirm. Here is each market, checked on its own evidence.
Likely OKPocky Chocolate and Strawberry, US retail box (Ezaki Glico USA)
Yes, Pocky Chocolate and Strawberry sold in the US read as halal-suitable: no gelatin, no animal enzyme and no alcohol in the ingredient list, though the US box is not certified.
- No gelatin, animal rennet or alcohol named in either the Chocolate or Strawberry ingredient list.
- The shortening in both flavors is vegetable oil (palm oil and hydrogenated palm oil, or interesterified sunflower oil and palm oil), not tallow.
- Glico USA's own product page carries no halal or kosher claim, and we found no certification mark on the US box.
- Indonesia is a different question entirely: Glico Indonesia's own site names Pocky as MUI halal certified.
Data checked on 2026-09-28. Formulations change; verify your package.
The evidence: the US label and what Glico's own sites say
Chocolate Pocky (US, UPC 0073141153423). The US label record for this UPC on Open Food Facts, imported from the USDA database, lists: wheat flour, sugar, chocolate liquor, blend of vegetable oils (sunflower oil, palm oil), whole milk powder, vegetable oil shortening (palm oil, hydrogenated palm oil), and 1 percent or less of cocoa butter, salt, artificial flavors, yeast, soy lecithin, leavening (sodium bicarbonate), and mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids. The allergen statement declares wheat, milk and soybean, with a may contain peanut, almond and coconut warning. Nothing on this list is gelatin, animal-derived enzyme or alcohol.
Strawberry Pocky (US, UPC 0073141150057). This box lists: wheat flour, sugar, blend of vegetable oil (interesterified sunflower oil, palm oil), lactose, whole milk powder, palm oil shortening, and 1 percent or less of artificial flavors, salt, beet red color, yeast, strawberry powder, lecithin, leavening (sodium bicarbonate), monoglyceride, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, sodium hydroxide and papain. Polyglycerol polyricinoleate (PGPR, also called E476) is almost always sourced from castor oil, a plant. Papain is a plant enzyme from papaya used as a dough conditioner. Sodium hydroxide is a processing aid, not an animal product. Again, no gelatin and no alcohol appear.
What Glico's own sites say. We checked Glico's global site (glico.com/global), its US site (glico.com/us) including the Pocky product page, and found no halal or kosher statement on either. Glico Indonesia's site (glico.com/id) is the exception: its Quality page links a page titled Halal that names Pocky, Pejoy and PRETZ as MUI certified and links a certificate PDF. Glico Thailand's site (glico.com/th), checked on both its Quality page and its Pocky product page directly, carries no halal mention at all, despite some search results implying Thai certification through CICOT. We could not find a Glico Malaysia site.
Pocky by production country
| Market | Manufacturer | Halal status |
|---|---|---|
| United States (import) | Ezaki Glico USA | No gelatin or alcohol in the Chocolate or Strawberry ingredient list. Not certified halal. No kosher mark found either. |
| Japan (domestic) | Ezaki Glico Co., Ltd. | Glico's Japan site carries no halal statement. We could not confirm certification or the ingredient sourcing for Japan-only flavors, some of which use alcohol-based flavoring in other Glico snack lines. Insufficient Data for the domestic Japanese box. |
| Thailand | Glico Thailand Co., Ltd. | We checked Glico Thailand's Quality page and its Pocky product page directly and found no halal mention or mark, despite some search results referencing CICOT certification for Thai snacks generally. Insufficient Data until the pack itself shows a CICOT mark. |
| Indonesia | PT Glico Wings (Glico Indonesia) | Certified. Glico Indonesia's own site names Pocky, Pejoy and PRETZ as MUI halal certified and links a certificate document. |
| Malaysia | Not identified | We found no Glico Malaysia site, and JAKIM's halal portal needs an interactive product search we could not run. Insufficient Data; check the box for a JAKIM mark. |
A country is not a barcode. Pocky bought while travelling, or a box imported outside its usual market, can carry none of that market's certification even if the shelf sign implies otherwise. Scan the exact box you are holding. See is KitKat halal for another snack where the country of manufacture, not the brand name, decides the certificate.
Which Pocky flavors are halal-friendly in the US
Chocolate and Strawberry, the two flavors we verified against the Open Food Facts label records for their UPCs, both use a vegetable oil shortening and list no gelatin or alcohol, so both read as halal-suitable on ingredients alone. Neither carries a certification mark. Other US flavors, including Matcha, Cookies and Cream and Almond Crush (which adds tree nuts to the allergen line), show similar vegetable-oil-based recipes in product listings, but we did not pull and verify each flavor's full ingredient panel the way we did for Chocolate and Strawberry, so treat those as unverified rather than assumed safe. The dough conditioners and emulsifiers that show up across flavors, PGPR and mono- and diglycerides among them, are the ones worth a second look on any label; see is E471 halal for how an unspecified mono- and diglyceride source is generally read.
Stacked verdict: halal, kosher, vegetarian, vegan and allergens
Halal and kosher pull apart completely on Pocky: the US box reads halal-suitable but uncertified, Indonesia's box is halal certified by MUI, and we could not confirm a kosher mark on any market's box. Dairy runs through every US flavor we checked, so none is vegan. PlatePal checks all of this on one scan instead of making you track a country list.
| Profile | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Halal | Likely OK | For the US box (Chocolate and Strawberry): no gelatin, animal enzyme or alcohol, and the shortening is vegetable oil. No certification mark on the US box. Indonesia is different and certified separately; Thailand and Malaysia we could not confirm. |
| Kosher | Insufficient Data | We found no kosher mark referenced on Glico USA's own product page, and the OU database that would confirm or rule out a certification needs a browser search we do not have. Check the box in your hand for an OU, OK or Star-K symbol. |
| Vegetarian | Likely OK | The US Chocolate and Strawberry recipes list no gelatin, animal rennet or meat-derived ingredient. Dairy (milk powder, lactose) is present, which is fine for most vegetarian diets. |
| Vegan | Concerns | Whole milk powder and, in Strawberry, lactose appear in both US flavors we checked. Not suitable for a vegan diet. |
| Allergens | Concerns | The US box declares wheat, milk and soybean, and Chocolate carries a may contain peanut, almond and coconut warning. Read the exact box, since flavors differ. |
Frequently asked questions
Is Pocky halal?
It depends which box. Pocky is made by Ezaki Glico, a Japanese company that licenses or runs production in several countries, and halal status changes by where the box was made, not by the Pocky name alone. The Chocolate and Strawberry sticks sold in the US list no gelatin, animal enzyme or alcohol, with a vegetable oil shortening, so the ingredients read as halal-suitable, but the US box carries no halal certification mark. Pocky sold in Indonesia is different: Glico Indonesia's own site names Pocky as MUI halal certified. We could not confirm certification for Thailand or Malaysia. Name your market before trusting a flat yes.
Is Pocky halal certified?
Only in Indonesia, based on what we could verify. Glico Indonesia's own site (glico.com/id) states that its Pocky, Pejoy and PRETZ lines carry MUI (Majelis Ulama Indonesia) halal certification and links to a certificate PDF. We checked Glico's global site, its US site and its Thailand site directly and found no halal certification claim or mark on any of them for Pocky. A search engine may surface Glico Indonesia's certificate page for a broader query, which is the only market page we could confirm actually carries one.
What Pocky flavors are halal in the US?
Based on the ingredient lists we checked, Chocolate and Strawberry both read as halal-suitable: wheat flour, sugar, chocolate liquor or strawberry powder, vegetable oil, whole milk powder, a vegetable oil shortening, and small amounts of soy lecithin, leavening and flavoring, with no gelatin and no alcohol named. Neither carries a halal certification mark. Other US flavors, including Matcha, Cookies and Cream and Almond Crush, use similar vegetable-oil-based recipes on Open Food Facts listings, but we did not verify each flavor's full ingredient panel directly, so scan the exact box before assuming the same holds.
Is Pocky halal in Thailand?
We could not confirm it either way. Glico operates a Thailand subsidiary with its own site (glico.com/th), and some search results reference halal certification through Thailand's Central Islamic Committee (CICOT) for Thai-made snacks generally. We checked Glico Thailand's own quality page and its Pocky product page directly and found no halal mention or certification mark on either. CICOT's own halal status lookup needs an interactive search we could not run. Treat a Thailand-made box as Insufficient Data unless the pack itself carries a CICOT halal mark.
Is Pocky kosher?
We could not confirm this for any market. Glico USA's own product page makes no kosher claim, and we found no kosher symbol referenced on any Glico regional site we checked. The Orthodox Union's certification database would be the authoritative way to check, but it needs an interactive browser search that was not available to us. PlatePal marks this Insufficient Data rather than guessing. Look for an OU, OK, Star-K or similar mark printed on the box.
Does Pocky contain alcohol or gelatin?
Not in the two US flavors we checked. The Chocolate and Strawberry ingredient lists we pulled from the Open Food Facts label records for those two UPCs name no gelatin and no alcohol; the shortening in both is vegetable oil, and the small amount of flavoring is listed only as artificial flavor, not as a wine, liqueur or spirit flavoring the way some Japanese-market confections use. We have not verified every Pocky flavor sold worldwide, and specialty or seasonal Japanese editions are worth checking individually before assuming the same.
Is Pocky halal in Malaysia?
We could not confirm it. We found no Glico Malaysia site (glico.com/my returns no page), and Malaysia's JAKIM halal portal requires an interactive product search we do not have access to. If you are in Malaysia, the reliable check is the JAKIM halal logo printed on the box itself, not a general assumption based on other markets' certification.
What this page is not
Allergens. PlatePal screens ingredient data, so this page is information and not medical advice. A recipe can change before the data does, and shared equipment never appears in an ingredient list. Always read the label on the package in your hand, and follow your allergist or doctor over any app.
Religious status. A screening result is not a religious ruling. Certifiers and schools of thought differ, and PlatePal does not rank them. For anything you hold yourself strictly to, ask a qualified authority or the certifier you already follow.
See also is KitKat halal, the halal chocolate list, and the halal snacks list for more shelf staples checked market by market. For the box in your hand, use the halal food checker.
Sources
- Pocky, Ezaki Glico USA, US ingredients and allergens, UPC 0073141153423 (Open Food Facts) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Strawberry Cream Covered Biscuit Sticks, US ingredients and allergens, UPC 0073141150057 (Open Food Facts) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Glico global corporate site, no halal statement found (glico.com/global) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Glico USA, Pocky product page, no halal or kosher claim found (glico.com/us) Checked 2026-09-28.
- PT Glico Wings Indonesia, Halal certification page naming Pocky, Pejoy and PRETZ as MUI certified (glico.com/id) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Glico Indonesia, Quality category page linking the Halal certificate (glico.com/id) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Glico Thailand, Quality category page, no halal mention found (glico.com/th) Checked 2026-09-28.
- Glico Thailand, Pocky product page, no halal mention found (glico.com/th) Checked 2026-09-28.