Demand for vegan and plant-based foods has soared in recent years but a lack of legal clarity over definitions is putting people with allergies at risk. Nick Hughes reports.
A huge increase in the supply of vegan and plant-based products has been one of the defining food trends of the past five years. Often marketed for their health and sustainability credentials, data from Mintel’s global new products database found that the number of new packaged consumer goods launched with a plant-based claim increased by 302% between 2018 and 2022.
Foodservice brands, including the likes of McDonald’s and Burger King, have also been keen to cater to those who want to cut back on meat or eschew it altogether.
There have been recent setbacks, notably Meatless Farms falling into administration (since rescued by plant-based supplier VFC) and Nestlé’s decision to withdraw its Garden Gourmet and Wunda brands from sale; however Mintel expects the overall market to continue to grow noting that “plant-based is now a lifestyle choice, and it’s here to stay”.
That’s good news for the 3% of the population that identifies as completely vegetarian and the 1% that follows a strict vegan diet, according to Food Standards Agency (FSA) survey data. It’s good news too for the growing band of people who are actively looking to cut down on their meat consumption by adopting a flexitarian diet.
But for those people who eschew animal-based products due to an allergy or intolerance, the growth in foods marketed as vegan can be a double-edged sword. Recent sampling data obtained by Hampshire and Kent Scientific Services found a number of products labelled as ‘vegan’ or ‘plant-based’ contained milk or eggs. The full data, reported by The Guardian, showed 24 (39%) out of 61 products labelled as vegan contained egg or dairy, including 13 dairy alternatives and 48 meat alternatives.
Grey area
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) has subsequently warned that the lack of a legal definition for vegan food could be putting lives at risk. Descriptions such as vegan and plant-based are classified as voluntary information meaning the responsibility is on food businesses to ensure that the information they provide is fair and does not mislead the consumer. There is however currently no legal threshold for what constitutes animal-free food. As such, a consumer with an allergy to an ingredient such as milk or egg could unknowingly eat a food labelled as vegan or plant-based without realising the potential risk they are putting themselves in. The producer could equally be in the dark in cases where a product contains trace amounts of animal-derived foods due to unintentional cross-contamination from the production process.
The CTSI recently published the results of a consumer attitude survey as part of a new policy paper on vegan and plant-based food. It found that over three quarters (76.4%) of consumers believed that food labelled as vegan should be completely free of anything derived from an animal, while almost half (49.6%) thought that foods labelled as plant-based are vegan. Among respondents with an allergy to milk, 84.6% believed vegan foods were safe for them to eat.
As well as causing confusion for consumers, “the lack of legal definition could be exploited by unethical food businesses claiming foods are vegan, when in fact they contain animal-derived products”, said CTSI chief executive John Herriman. Perhaps of greater concern according to Herriman “is that this ambiguity can have disastrous and sometimes tragic consequences for those with allergies to animal-derived products, like milk and eggs”.
The CTSI paper refers to the case of Celia Marsh, who had a known allergy to milk, and died in 2016 as a result of anaphylaxis after eating a ‘vegan’ wrap from Pret which contained milk protein as a result of contamination. The risk to life is why the CTSI is now calling for more clarity on what can and can’t legally be described as vegan and plant-based food, including legal thresholds for what constitutes animal-free food so that any food manufacturer or restaurant flouting the rules can be held accountable.
Businesses themselves may welcome the clarity. The CSTI notes how some brands have shied away from describing their products as vegan because they cannot be 100% confident that they contain no animal products.
PAL challenge
An alternative, and somewhat perverse outcome, often comes in the form of products labelled as vegan or plant-based that also carry a warning of the possible presence of allergens such as milk or egg. Debate over the use of this type of precautionary allergen labelling (PAL) by food businesses goes well beyond vegan products. Regulators across the world have been grappling with how to bring PAL within regulatory frameworks to give both businesses and consumers greater certainty over the risk of cross-contamination and the legal implications.
PAL is a current priority area for the FSA as part of its programme of work on food hypersensitivity. FSA research has shown that inconsistency precautionary allergen labelling can cause a lack of trust in the labels and stop people who live with food allergies or intolerances being able to enjoy certain foods. Last year the FSA ran a consumer perception study on PAL which found that in general people judge it as legal “cover” for the business in the case of accidental consumer harm rather than a beneficial communications tool.
The FSA has recently consulted on new guidance on PAL for prepacked foods. The guidance includes the recommendations that PAL statements: should only be used following a thorough risk assessment; should specify which of the 14 regulated allergens they refer to (for example, “may contain peanuts and tree nuts” rather than the generic statement “may contain nuts”); should only be used following a thorough risk assessment; and should not be used in conjunction with a free-from statement for the same allergen (for example, “may contain milk” should not be used in combination with “dairy free”). This last recommendation in particular has potential relevance to future vegan or plant-based claims.
Businesses should also provide a straightforward means for consumers to contact them about their allergen cross-contact risk assessment that informs a PAL statement. “While the use of PAL is voluntary, it is important that it should be as accurate and helpful to consumers as possible when it is applied,” said FSA food hypersensitivity team leader, Ben Rayner. He added that the guidance would help ensure businesses and those living with food allergies and intolerances get the greatest possible benefit from PAL.
The FSA is also progressing a work stream aimed at improving the accuracy and communication of allergen information for non-prepacked food consumed outside of the home in a hospitality and foodservice setting and is due to come up with a recommended approach in 2024.
Globally, the PAL agenda is also progressing at pace. A joint World Health Organisation (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) expert committee recently reviewed the data on the current status and uses of PAL and unanimously agreed that current systems used in many countries needed to be improved as they were neither uniform nor informative and were not consistently risk based. The committee also found that current PAL approaches led to widespread labelling that diminished information and value for consumers.
A key strand of global work on PAL is the development of standardised reference doses for allergens (values below which exposure does not carry an appreciable health risk), something that the food industry has been calling forthrough trade bodies such as FoodDrinkEurope. Earlier this year WHO and FAO experts recommended reference doses for priority foods including milk, peanut and egg. The FSA is now assessing whether there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that using these reference doses would not significantly impact public health in the UK.
Legume risk
The rapid growth of vegan and plant-based foods has given them greater prominence within the allergens debate. Besides the risk of contamination with animal foods, campaigners are also trying to engage businesses on the risk from legume-based allergens from novel foods, in particular meat alternatives, that may contain ingredients like chickpeas or peas that are not among the 14 required by EU (and currently UK) law to be highlighted on product labels. Insect-based foods and supplements also need to be treated with caution, according to experts.
Vegan foods are often marketed with a health and sustainability halo; often (although not always) this is merited. But the message from experts is clear – the risk that this growing category of foods could cause hidden harms for those with allergies needs to be addressed, and quickly.
