Vegan Food Production
I have recently been slightly confused on whether some products are vegan or not. Some products claim to be vegan but are made in a factory that uses milk, so they say it may contain traces of milk. And some products have the right ingredients but because they may contain milk traces they say it is not vegan. Two examples spring to mind.
Example One
Cadburys “Frys Peppermint Cream”, the ingredients are fine, no dairy, egg or animal ingredients, but they say it is not suitable for vegans because it is produced in a factory that uses milk in production so it may contain milk traces.
Example Two
Animal Aid Chocolates are Vegan Society Approved but the packaging does say may contain milk traces.
They seem to have the same issue with milk traces, so are they both vegan or are they not vegan? Would the Vegan Society Approve of both productions of chocolate?
Of course the only way to be sure is to only buy vegan food that is made in a vegan factory but lets face it, there are not many of those around.
The EU now has regulation that we have to label food for allergy sufferers so if there is any chance of nuts or dairy then they have to tell you on the packaging.
From the Food Standards Agency
The rules for pre-packed foods establish a list of 14 food allergens, which have to be indicated by reference to the source allergen whenever they, or ingredients made from them, are used at any level in pre-packed foods, including alcoholic drinks. The list consists of cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, molluscs, eggs, fish, peanuts, nuts, soybeans, milk, celery, mustard, sesame, lupin and sulphur dioxide at levels above 10mg/kg, or 10 mg/litre, expressed as SO2.
I am not sure how I feel about the possibility of traces of milk in my food, but I imagine for some it is not acceptable. But if for example the ingredients say may contain traces of meat, I would run a mile.
Where is the line?
I have had a reply from the vegan society. Here is their response:-
Hello Maggie,
Thanks for your email
You may find the link below pointing to the relevant webpage on our website useful:
http://www.vegansociety.com/about/policies/allergy-labelling.aspx
The decision was taken to formally permit (this wasn’t a change in our existing policy, just formalised) the writing of “may contain traces of milk/egg” next to our logo on products trademarked with us for a number of reasons:
1. No scientific tests exist that can measure that something is 100% free of milk derivatives – only that a product has a low PPM (parts per million) count. There has even been a case of a person having an allergic reaction to traces of dairy in a product where it had previously been batch-tested as dairy-free, although this person was obviously exceptionally sensitive.
2. Without testing every batch (which is prohibitively expensive for most companies) it is impossible to guarantee that somewhere along the supply-chain milk/egg products have not contaminated the product – either with the farmer in the field drinking milky tea or the worker in the factory eating a cheese sandwich.
3. Rice, spices and other grains have a UN-quota of insect particles considerably higher than ‘trace’ level – yet because insects are not allergens, this doesn’t need to be declared on packaging and so these products are considered common-sense vegan foods. If vegans were to avoid incidental trace-level animal products, they would need to exclude all grains from their diet too. It is for reasons such as this we include “…as far as is practicable and possible” in our definition of veganism.
4. Most companies have products produced in the same factories as non-vegan products because they cannot afford to have their own factories – we would be prejudicing the smaller companies if we did not accept this for trademarking.
5. In the UK a lot of companies just write “may contain traces of…” to cover themselves in the exceptional case that there may be contamination even if this is highly unlikely just in case one day it happens (see point 2) and someone has an allergic reaction from it. For this reason the Vegan Society specifically indicates that the trademark logo is not a suitable guide for allergy-sufferers.
We do ask trademark holders to sign binding certificates indicating that they will “minimise cross contamination” by cleaning through all machinery and utensils before being used for the vegan products registered with us.
We categorically do not trademark any products that intentionally contain, or contain more than traces of, any animal product, by-product or derivative. Again, the words “may contain traces of…” are used to alert allergy sufferers to the outside possibility that at some point the product May have become contaminated at trace level. If we used this standard for the trademark, we would have almost no sign-posting to vegan consumers and it would discourage people from becoming vegan.
Thank you, and if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Best wishes,
Daniel Therkelsen
Education Officer
The Vegan Society