The Vegan Trademark

The Vegan Society coined the word ‘vegan’ way back in 1944. They are the oldest vegan organisation in the world and in 1990 they launched the Vegan Trademark scheme to improve product labelling. While there are other vegan trademark schemes available, we firmly believe the UK’s Vegan Society Trademark scheme is the most robust standard and has demonstrated its success over the last 30 years.

The fee varies widely and ultimately depends on the size of the business, the number of products being registered and length of licence term (12 or 24 months). After your initial enquiry and registration, the Vegan Society will provide a written quote to proceed with the accreditation process. If it is discovered during that process that your products do not meet their standards, you will have the option to amend your product or withdraw from the registration process. At this stage up to 50% of your fee will be returned, if you ask for a refund within 3 months.

ANIMAL INGREDIENTS

The ingredients and the manufacturing process and/or development of the product must not involve, or have involved, the use of any animal product, by-product or derivative. This includes meat, any form of dairy, honey, leather, wool, shellac or any other animal or insect derivative. The word ‘animal’ refers to the entire Animal Kingdom, which is all vertebrates and all multi-cellular invertebrates.

ANIMAL TESTING

The development and/or manufacture of the product must not involve, or have involved, testing of any sort on animals – be this conducted at the initiative of your company, on its behalf, or by parties over whom your company has effective control.

CROSS-CONTAMINATION

Any potential cross-contamination with animal-derived ingredients must be prevented as far as is practical and possible. As a minimum, surfaces and utensils must be thoroughly cleaned down prior to being used for a vegan production line. You must demonstrate you are aware of the risk of cross-contamination from non-vegan sources in the production area, and take all reasonable practical steps to eliminate this.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED ORGANISMS (GMOS)

The development and/or production of any genetically modified organisms (GMO) in your product must not have involved animal genes or animal-derived substances. Products put forward for registration which contain or may contain any GMOs must be labelled as such.

We register products, which allows non-vegan companies to grow their vegan range and therefore we accept registrations from any company that produces vegan-friendly products. We aim to make the Vegan Trademark accessible to everyone whose products fit our specific criteria. This includes products containing no animal ingredients, vegan processing aids used in manufacturing, and ingredients that have never been tested on animals on behalf of the manufacturer.

We offer a unique product checking service, with years of experience, to ensure that your product’s vegan claim is valid and authentic. As the charity that coined the term vegan, the UK Vegan Society are the experts in this field.

Vegan Trademark holders benefit in a multitude of ways. From credible brand awareness, market insights, and access to the vegan community, to discounted advertising opportunities, social media promotion, competitions, and product exposure at events.

Experienced officers will guide you through the four-step process of registering your products with the Vegan Trademark.

The Vegan Society sees excellent value in registering products instead of companies. We’ve found that it encourages companies to further develop and improve the labelling on vegan options in their wider portfolio of products.

By encouraging the development of vegan options, and improving the labelling on suitable products, we have helped to make a vegan lifestyle even more accessible, appealing and often more affordable, too. In turn, registration further promotes ‘vegan’ as a household name.

It is important to note that The Vegan Society does not endorse whole companies. We only register individual products. Often, companies will also sell products that contain animal-derived ingredients in their ranges. We encourage all individuals to make informed choices about companies that they wish to support.

We offer licence periods of 12 or 24 months. Supermarket licences are usually set at 12 months to support the high turnover of products.

As many as you want! There’s no limit.

Please allow between 30 and 60 working days. This is dependent on the complexity of your application and the efficiency of communication channels. If you have any deadlines, please let us know and we will always do our best to work with you to meet these. We are happy to work directly with your suppliers on the registration.