Vegan foods: Labelling practice

Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: June 16, 2016 | Revision accepted: October 24, 2016

Introduction

In recent years, the vegan diet has become more popular in Germany. So far, there is no reliable data on the exact number of vegan consumers in Germany. According to estimates from 2015, the percentage of vegans among the German population accounted for 1% [1, 2]. Although the exact number of vegans living in Germany cannot be quantified, the trend towards vegan food can also be observed in other areas of society such as the cookbook market, the gastronomic sector and on trade fairs.

Whilst there were 67 vegan/vegetarian cookbooks published in 41 publishing houses in 2010, already in the first three months of 2014 there were 135 vegan/vegetarian cookbooks in 71 publishing houses [3]. According to figures from the Vegetarierbund Deutschland e. V. (VEBU; German Vegetarian Union) in 2013, 75 vegan gastronomic undertakings were counted in medium-sized and big cities in Germany. In January 2015, 122 vegan gastronomic undertakings were listed [4]. In addition, in 2015 there was a variety of seven well-frequented trade fairs exclusively on vegan products [5]. In the meanwhile, also the German Nutrition Society (DGE) has published a position paper on the topic of vegan diet [6].

Abstract

Recently, vegan food has gained importance in the German population. For a long time, there was neither a uniform definition nor governmental regulation on the use of the term ‘vegan’. It wasn't until April 2016 that the consumerism ministers of the German federal states agreed on a uniform definition of the term. This definition is supposed to function as a temporarily base for evaluation for the official food control, until the European Commission issues standardized regulations. In addition, little is known about the labelling practice of vegan foods.

The aim of the present study was therefore to conduct an inventory of vegan food labels, to analyze the transparency of the standards behind the labels and to evaluate the current practice of vegan food labelling. Data was collected in 24 grocery stores for eleven product categories. The results of the study show there are two main types of vegan food labels: producer labels and third-party labels from independent organizations.

From 108 products analyzed, 79% were labelled with a producer label and only 44% carried a third-party label. In total, 23% of the products were labelled with both types of labels. Whereas the certification and production standards of the third-party labels could easily be found and accessed on the internet, the standards behind most of the producer labels were not transparent. The study concludes that the current practice of labelling vegan food merely with producer labels is partly not consumer-friendly and should be improved to increase transparency.

Keywords: vegan, vegetarian, vegan foods, food labelling, label, consumer protection, food industry

Full text PDF (free access)