VEGAN SAFE logo

Congrats Twisted Soul and welcome to the light.

Resources are not a problem.  People in the industry that I have spoken to, about the idea, have been supportive, so that is positive.  

As for motivation, hell yeah, ha ha.   Much more motivated than going to the gym at least,  though I guess it helps when you are doing something you are really passionate about.  I will be investing my time and money into this but feel it is worthwhile.

I have thought about this and what it would hinge upon is the personal approach of your HR. When dealing with companies, you'd have to act as a influential observer and all your employees having the same ethos. No room for favoritism and judgement calls, but precise distinctions. Touring their facilities and making note of the non-ethical practices also etc

But more so I think it only would carry the weight it needs, operated via a new initiative of the food safety sector of government not as an independent body. The science is there and instead of scrounging for funding I think it should be federally ran, so it is unified across all states.

Otherwise you're stuck marketing it to certain companies as a promo. Like |buy or support this logo and you get market interest in your products|. Where as, to make companies aware and conscious, it should be made the national standard that all foods not vegan safe should have to bare a logo. So then if you don't see the 'Not-Vegan' logo you know it is fine.

Imagine how stringent the system would have to be then to offer that assurance. And how accountable the government would be for poor management and monitoring of imports and their qualities and component origins, if they cannot guarantee the safety of food. Where-as at the moment, they barely police it at all, because there is no standards they must adhere to across the vast spectrum of imports/foods/product types. Vega* evokes conscious standards in all commodities.

To force the right people to be responsible for areas they are already liable for, in their current negligence. Products shouldn't have to identify how safe they are, but identify how safe they are not... advertising is an artful and cunning practice which should be better legislated and physiological loop holes in human desire better protected by new and more ethical policies.

Actually all foods should have to be tested in terms of toxicity and bare a skull and cross bones if it hasn't been studied to be entirely safe, but alas that is currently done through animals testing . Like those lollies "toxic sludge", atleast it would be the consumers own choice to eat something worthless and harmful. I mean they are marketing it to kids on the same premise as to why smokers smoke; just want to kill themselves a little more to shut the anxiety out of caring too much, but not being able to make the right choice out of negative options. Or that care taking their freedom away and causing some angst of conformity.

Why can we be so blasé about the majority of packaged foods, being indigestible, mutative and blocking the function of normal food nutrients.

When people are mouth watering at the words "four ninty five" more than they are about the plastic food art they are looking at, you have to wonder how long can animal testing of humans go on, before it becomes socially immoral. In that it alters the human genome degenerately/detrimentally and it is not socially accepted anymore.

There is enough research now into microwaves to suggest that what they do to food, is destroy the food value considerably and that the body cannot cope with a grain fed diet and that grain fed animals do not contain the necessary compounds anymore, that stop the degradation of the humans that metabolize them. What is food if it has no food worth anymore, it is an empty commodity, it is government bonds. An |IOU well being and a decent standard of living|, "this is what real food could one day look like! Try it, it even tastes like real food on your taste buds.. wow!"

I would never hire someone based on favourtism as that never ends well, and if I were to ever hire staff, yes, they woul have to have the same kind of values etc. as myself.  

It would be difficult to tour everyone manufacture's premises, but there are other ways of making sure they comply.  I would also probably have penalty fees in the contract as a deterrent as well.

I would like the logo to a national brand but there is no way that the Government would do anything like this - they can't even agree to national standards for goods that are made in Australia. Having a logo to say that something is NOT vegan is good in theory, but once again,  don't see this happening.  Government would never bring in legislation to say that companies do to this and I don't think any of them would voluntarily agree to have a logo like this on their packaging as it is more of a negative than a positive to them.

Since going vegan, I've always wondered why Vegetarian things are notified as such, and vegan not? I mean, if you're a vegetarian you can eat vegan food, but if you're vegan you can't necessarily eat vegetarian food. So why not cater for the more complex of the two?

Exactly Emma.  Its also a pain in the arse with some companies do both vegan and vegetarian foods.  Some of them are actually vegan but then later add dairy products in them, so unless you read the ingredients each time, you might not know.  Thats why I am hoping a logo will kind of help with this.

If the Government did it they wouldn't take any prisoners.
The legislation would rule over and it would be a standard practice.

Companies when going through the process of doing their food labeling,
would have to put 'Not-Vegan', unless they could prove otherwise.

And if a company could bother researching their own... products constituent parts.
Then they have the right to remove the 'Not-Vegan' logo.



Sorry, I meant when having many workers your end, it would be hard to make sure they all would make the same decisions in varying circumstance. Being different people.

Which leaves room for favorable decisions. Not in who you hire, but how they might be persuaded by companies to be abit 'slack'. So just saying it needs to be a very definite line... no judgement calls, just 'it is what it is'.

Although i'm sure that is what you have in mind ahhaha, hence why you know it is so important, because at the moment it is so ambiguous and that is the problem.

You pick up any product and it could either be Vegan or Not, depending simply on how far you want to look into it and how many people you don't care about bothering in the process of finding out the truth.

Arg. I'd support a Vegan Safe logo, knowing it simply means... the people making the products care enough about their customers to seek approval for things they already may be doing.

If a company doesn't care about certification, they generally have something to hide.

I dont think any companies would support the Government going a logo certification, because their argument would be that it impedes on their business. Even if there was some support by certain Ministers, it would probably take years before legislation was passed.

There will always be corruption, but as this would be a non for profit venture, if I were to employ anyone, then I would like to think that person was ethical and supportive of this kind of thing, and would be drawn to the position, rather than just someone off the street.

And yes, you last comment is 100%. If someone did have something to hide, then obviously they would not want to sign up, which counts them out of having the logo.

I still support non-Vegan Logo.
And no the Government would legislate it in an instant seeing a revenue in the profits from fines incurred by falsely advertising. And i'm sure the new legislation would make strict terms of removing the non-Vegan logo.

Also they could set up a Government Agency, an extension of food safety to sink taxes into while they use that as the compulsory certification process of companies wanting to remove the logo.

Hahhaha well that is their incentive.

Yeah maybe it should be independent >_______>
that is the only way to Guarantee no favouritism.

The Government would simply hide their favouritism in rhetoric and legislative jargonite, if it was purely run institutionally. Where as if it is independent with Government support and funding the indipendent aspect safe guards this happening, because those people care about their liabilities and responsibilities. They can't just change face each term (when they become unfavourable due to that very malpractice), then point fingers at they other side of their face and say "They did it".

I love this idea! There are a few different labels already, but they only deal with certain products (eg. Vegan Society and Leaping Bunny.) A widely used, universal logo would be wonderful.
The difficult thing is to define what is meant by 'vegan'.
I am quite strict with my shopping - I avoid all animal ingredients including honey, beeswax, additives, as well as palm oil, and I won't buy from companies who test on animals OR whose parent companies test on animals. For example, I think some Dolmio pasta sauce is 'vegan' in that it doesn't contain animal-derived ingredients, however their parent company, Mars, test their products on animals, so I don't buy it. The same goes for a lot of cosmetics. Another issue with some products is the filters used, such as bone char or isinglass, which I try to avoid if I know about it, but I am less strict with that.
I do buy products that 'may contain traces of' milk/eggs. Wherever possible, I will buy from strictly vegan companies, however I am also okay with buying food from companies that make non-vegan items. I see it as a way of encouraging those companies to continue their vegan line, and hopefully expand it in the future.

One way to deal with people's different interpretations of veganism would be to include a rating system on the label. You could use a star rating system or have a thermometer within the logo (the more filled with colour, the better the rating.)

I've noticed that some food labels highlight the non-vegan ingredients in bold, which makes reading labels a lot quicker and easier. I suspect that has more to do with food allergies than catering for vegans, though.
I would love to see the Vegan Safe label on foods like breads, sauces, snacks, drinks... anything that can be hit-or-miss and not easy to identify without reading the ingredients (and even then, sometimes they just list "natural flavours"...) Also everything in the vegetarian section of supermarkets, because some mock meat & cheese is not vegan, and even some veggie patties and flavoured tempeh have egg or honey. Another useful one would be medicine and vitamins, because as you mentioned, some have gelatin caps, and also animal-derived vitamins. Most pharmaceuticals are tested on animals though, so it's a tricky one.  If you're going to include cosmetics, it would be great to have labels on some common items like razors, face wipes, toothpaste, etc... I don't think I've seen any bunny logos on those types of items.

If it's going to be a straight yes-or-no label without ratings, I think the following would suit the majority of vegans (from what I gather, anyway... correct me if I'm wrong!)
- no animal ingredients
- no animal testing
- no palm oil unless ethically sourced
- traces are okay
- judge individual companies, not parent companies

Thanks for putting in the time to help us all out, Mark!