Trademark

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 sunfl ower 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

supermarket shelves are teeming with amazing and varied vegan products. For the past 30 years, the Vegan Trademark has communicated a simple message to vegan and vegancurious consumers – this product is suitable for vegans!

Our impact today

Today the Vegan Trademark is a large source of funding for the charity, allowing us to do so much more and to reach a wider audience with our educational campaigns than we ever have previously.

With over 42,000 products registered globally, the Vegan Trademark has helped to catapult veganism into the mainstream. Talk of vegan ethics and culture-shifting vegan products has been on the lips of A-list celebrities, graced the front of newspapers and broken year-on-year online search records.

This year, our official partner Veganuary signed up a record 400,000 people (compared with 250,000 in 2019), showing us that more people than ever are adopting a vegan lifestyle and choosing vegan products. The Vegan Trademark is proud to be a part of this incredible growth by making vegan products more visible than ever.

Where we are headed

As more and more people adopt a vegan diet and lifestyle, vegan products are being developed at an unprecedented rate, with multinational and non-vegan brands investing huge amounts of money and technology into them. This is despite

the continued challenges from the meat and dairy lobbies, which are observing a very real threat to their industries.

With the market share of vegan products growing, so is the number of registrations with the Vegan Trademark. At present, The Vegan Society’s Vegan Trademark is both the most recognised and most trusted vegan label within every dietary preference analysed in a recent survey by The Vegan Society. Consumers don’t just want the word ‘vegan’ on their packaging to signal a vegan product – they are increasingly demanding the authority and credibility behind our trademark.

How you can support the Vegan Trademark

Supporting companies that label their products correctly and contacting them to praise their efforts is a great start. It is worth supporting smaller businesses that actively seek to create vegan products, as well as larger companies that include vegan options in their ranges. By buying these items, you are showing retailers that there is a demand for animalfree alternatives. This not only increases the number of products that they will offer, but labelling will improve as a natural result. Approaching companies and asking them to consider using the Vegan Trademark can ensure they label products correctly, allowing millions of consumers worldwide to shop with confidence and peace of mind.

You can also follow @vegantrademark on Instagram and Twitter and share your favourite Vegan Trademark registered products on social media using our anniversary hashtag: #30yearsofvegan.