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Tesco will become the second major retailer to mark its vegan products in just six months.
The supermarket chain has created a new in-house vegan logo that will feature on own-brand products that are free from animal derived ingredients.
The new label is expected to start appearing in-store in the near future and will be rolled out to all applicable goods over the next two years as existing stock and packaging is replaced, and where it is practical to do so.
In December 2016, rival supermarket Asda announced that it would be introducing vegan labelling on all appropriate products in its own-brand range, starting with 18 items and adding others as packaging is refreshed. Prior to this, only Sainsbury’s and the Co-operative routinely labelled vegan products.
The news comes in the wake of Animal Aid’s Mark It Vegan campaign, which calls on major supermarkets to introduce clear labelling on all vegan own-brand products.
Animal Aid’s Vegan Campaign Manager, Ben Martin, says: ‘This is fantastic news and is another sign that big businesses are taking the needs of the UK’s half a million vegans seriously. Tesco has already introduced a range of specialist egg- and dairy-free products in recent years, but this new measure will mean that vegans will be able to easily identify the many Tesco products that are animal-free by accident, rather than design. With veganism growing rapidly in the UK, this will make shopping much easier, especially for new vegans.’
A spokesperson for Tesco added: “We continue to be committed to serving all our shoppers a little better every day and our new Tesco vegan and vegetarian labels will help the growing number of customers looking to buy these products. We want to ensure that all our products that are suitable for vegans are labelled as vegan wherever possible, and the new labels will start to appear on products in the near future. We will take a phased approach to updating our product labels with the aim to complete this process within the next two years.”
