Which of these two statements resonates with you?
“Vegan is just this years thing, like alcopops and deely boppers in their time. It’s been hyped up through Veganuary, the supermarkets have climbed on board but already there’s a backlash. We’ve reached peak vegan. This year’s last year’s thing.”
“For the sake of the planet and our health we have to break our addiction to exploiting animals through drinking their milk and eating their flesh. We have got to evolve a kinder, more sustainable way of growing our food.”
So which side are you on? Or do you take the classic English stance of “well, there’s a bit of truth in both sides”?
I come down more on the side of the latter. I don’t think farming without animals is necessarily a good idea – what on earth can you stick on a hillside other than a sheep or a goat? And my preferred organic farming system is reliant on animals to add fertility – yes I know stockless organic rotations exist but they are not suitable for every application. Eating modest amounts of meat and dairy is fine so long as we make sure they are the products of high welfare and sustainable agriculture. Eat less, eat better.
I received my own body-weight in cheese as Christmas presents, including a subscription to a monthly cheese club. Although I have been vegetarian for many decades, life without cheese strikes me as possible but pointless. However I have got to the point where I am not eating cheese every day.
Although the moral debate is fascinating I am more interested in the practical implications for the food industry resulting from the rapid rise in manufactured vegan and dairy-free food. A sobering example is Marks & Spencer’s recent Vegan Kitchen launch, as described by The Grocer. In January 2019 Marks & Spencer launched the Plant Kitchen vegan range – sixty products developed in consultation with Allergy UK and the Vegan Society. On-pack it said “Vegan friendly so people don’t have to compromise on taste”. However some products were labeled with the words “traces of egg and dairy may be present in the environment in which products were made”. The result was heavy criticism on Twitter, in the Sunday Times and elsewhere. It seems to me that Marks & Spencer did their absolute best to keep every stakeholder informed about how their products had been manufactured and this spirit of open-ness is to be applauded. The problem was widely differing consumer expectations.
I have identified six different consumer groups all interested in these products. There may be more. Each group is looking for something different. Let us consider their varying attitude towards foods that are marketed as not containing dairy ingredients:
- Allergics
A small quantity of dairy product can make these people ill. So zero tolerance of any dairy content is required. Inadvertent cross-contamination from other products during manufacturing lines is a real problem. A label that says “may contain” means the product is unacceptable.
- Intolerants
As above but less so. Consumption of dairy products results in a wide spectrum of effects from illness to feelings of being below-par. Depending on degree of sensitivity a “may contain “ label may be acceptable. Dairy from non-cow sources (goat, sheep) may be acceptable to this group.
- Free From
If you are neither allergic or intolerant then the decision to seek products labeled as Free From Dairy makes you a Life Style consumer. Life Style consumers now account for over 50% of all Free From consumers. A little bit of dairy inadvertently present in an otherwise dairy-free product is unlikely to bother these consumers as there are no negative after-effects from consumption. Similarly a “may contain” label is absolutely fine. Non-cow dairy may also be OK. This consumer group may move on from buying Free From when the next nutritional trend appears.
- Plant Based
Based on the FDIN conference I chaired last year the Plant Based consumer group are looking to avoid dairy for environmental and personal health reasons. So they can be bracketed in with the Free From Lifestyle consumer. This is the only group where the intention is positive (inclusion of plant-based products) rather than negative (avoidance of dairy-based ingredients).
- Vegans
Many vegans approach the avoidance of dairy from a militant and political angle. These people regard eating meat or milk as totally unacceptable because it exploits animals, who we should be treating more kindly. More committed vegans will avoid wool, honey and leather. Trace contamination of a dairy-free product or a “may contain” label is likely to be completely unacceptable. Of all these groups this is the one most likely to campaign for animal rights via activists such as PETA.
- Flexitarian
This group avoids dairy (and/or meat) some of the time but eats it at others, possibly as a result of being advised to change their diet to one less reliant on animal products on health grounds. They are apolitical and are generally not bothered by contamination issues or “may contain” labels.
So with at least six different sub-groups all with different needs all shopping the same supermarket fixture it is unsurprising that confusion and frustration amongst shoppers is the end result.
So what can we do to make things better?
One consequence of the rapid growth in Free From / Dairy Free / Allergen Free foods is that in the long term we may see more dedicated production facilities being built. The ubiquitous “may contain” declaration is only popular with lawyers: consumers, retailers and manufacturers all dislike it and find it incredibly unhelpful. A good way to move beyond “may contain” would be to process in a facility which never handles specific ingredients or allergens.
In the short term we could completely rethink about how we indicate to consumers what a food does and does not contain. At the moment this is done differently by every brand and every supermarket. A more uniform approach would, I believe, be welcomed by many people. In the way that we have uniformity on Back Of Pack ingredients lists and allergen highlighting (thank you FIR Regulations 2014) now may be the time to bring more consistency to Front Of Pack. An obvious model would be traffic lights: red – dairy present, yellow – may contain, green – no dairy present. Defining these terms in the absence of regulation will be tricky, so there is a role for government here. Describing more accurately the contents of every processed food and drink would allow each of these six consumer groups to understand easily whether that product met their needs.
Note that the above only applies to manufactured products sold through retail outlets. The out of home sector has its own very serious challenges around allergen labelling. The government is attempting to address these challenges through tougher legislation, currently the subject of a consultation by Defra.
What is needed now is clarity and consistency around the provision of on-pack information. All the above six sectors are in growth and contain many younger customers. If we are to avoid the disappointment and frustration of the type voiced by consumers over the Marks & Spencer Vegan Kitchen range it is time to more accurately describe what is to be found in all manufactured foods. The six consumer groups I have described have differing needs, and it is the shared responsibility of regulators, manufacturers, brand-holders and retailers to clearly signpost which products meet those needs. As these young sectors continue to grow in size and become less niche this will become an increasingly difficult challenge, so let us try and sort it out now.
Simon Wright
January 29th 2019
(With thanks to Isabelle Favato for her helpful suggestions)