Vegetarian and vegan foods
The problem
I'm keen to attract a wide array of customers with different dietary requirements, and therefore would like to offer vegetarian and vegan food. However, I can find no guidance as to my legal obligations in offering and describing such products. Do I have to prepare, cook and store products separately? And what will happen if I don't?
The law
The Trades Description Act prohibits false or misleading descriptions. Consequently claims such as "suitable for vegetarians" or "suitable for vegans" could be challenged if found to be unsubstantiated.
The Food Safety Act prohibits "falsely describing or presenting food" and the General Food Regulations 2004 prohibit misleading labelling. In April this year, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) published guidance on vegetarian and vegan labelling. By providing a standard interpretation of the terms "vegetarian" and "vegan", it aims to prevent mislabelling of foods and improve consistency in the use of the terms.
Although the guidance is not enforceable by law, it means that local enforcement bodies now have a standard definition when deciding whether to prosecute under the relevant legislation outlined above.
Expert advice
If caterers choose to label or advertise any of their menu items as "vegetarian/suitable for vegetarians" or "vegan/suitable for vegans", they must ensure that those products are vegetarian or vegan in accordance with the guidance criteria, because if there is any legal challenge, these are the criteria that any local enforcement agency is likely
to apply.
What this means in practical terms is that the descriptor of vegan or vegetarian should be used only for foods which contain vegetarian or vegan ingredients alone, as defined by the guidance, and which have not been contaminated with non-vegetarian or non-vegan foods during storage, preparation, cooking or display.
The FSA guidance specifies that the term vegetarian should not be applied to foods that
"are, or are made from, or with the aid of, products derived from animals that have died, have been slaughtered, or animals that die as a result of being eaten. Animals means farmed, wild or domestic animals, including for example, livestock poultry, game, fish, shellfish, crustaceans, amphibians, tunicates, echinoderms, molluscs and insects". It also states that the term vegan should not be applied to foods that "are, or are made from or with the aid of animals or animal products (including products from living animals)".
CHECK LIST
- Download the full text of the FSA guidance from here.
- Check current information on additives. Anchovies, for example, are found in most brands of Worcester sauce and many alcoholic drinks are clarified using animal ingredients. The websites of the vegetarian and vegan societies may be useful in providing information on the origin of additives, processing aids and flavourings.
- Make sure there's no danger of cross-contamination. If you're going to offer vegetarian or vegan products, ensure that no animal fats are used in your cooking processes - frying, for example - and that vegetarian and vegan products have separate storage, preparation, cooking and display.
- Double-check all ingredients before describing your product as vegan or vegetarian - and make sure you know the difference. Foods that have additives deriving from milk
or eggs, for example, cannot
be described as "vegan", but could be described as "vegetarian".
BEWARE!
As we have pointed out, the FSA guidance is not enforceable by law. However, enforcement agencies such as trading standards officers are likely to use the criteria laid out in the guidance when deciding whether to prosecute under legislation such as the Trades Description Act, the Food Safety Act and the General Food Regulations - and fines can be hefty.
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