30 YEARS OF THE VEGAN TRADEMARK This year we celebrate 30 years of The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark. We introduced the trademark in 1990 and have been working tirelessly ever since, providing a trusted mark to help consumers easily spot vegan products. Each product labelled with the trademark has been checked by our experts to ensure that it contains no animal ingredients and that it has not been tested on animals.
Where it began While we have made great progress recently with ethical veganism being ruled as a protected belief, there is still no legal definition of ‘vegan’ when it comes to product labelling. Products are therefore open to being mislabelled – either by companies misunderstanding the definition or wanting to gain access to a vegan audience without doing the groundwork. Prompted by this lack of clarity in labelling, in 1990 we introduced the Vegan Trademark – the world’s first vegan product labelling scheme of its kind. Every day the Vegan Trademark helps vegans to find items that don’t compromise their ethics. While it’s a little easier to instantly spot which ingredients in a food item are suitable for vegans, this is not always the case when it comes to other items like cosmetics, toiletries, household cleaning products or the materials, glues, dyes and treatments often used in our clothing. The Vegan Trademark is crucial in giving consumers the comfort and assurance that we have covered all grounds and thoroughly checked ingredients and processes. The Trademark Team also works collaboratively with companies that are ready to reformulate their products to meet our standards. We closely regulate the use of the trademark, and our registration process is arguably the most thorough in the world. Each raw material is carefully evaluated by the Trademark Team and even the unlisted raw materials are scrutinised. We have seen some amazing changes made by manufacturers over the years to ensure their products are free from animal exploitation.
Why the sunflower? Our internationally recognised sunflower trademark was hand-drawn and taken from The Vegan Society’s original charity logo. The Vegan Trademark has not changed since 1990 and is seen as a trusted mark by consumers the world over. It has seen us through the days when The Vegan Society delivered soya milk to vegans with limited access to the present day, where the high street and 24 | The Vegan Issue 2 2020
