I recently emailed Sanitarium about their Vegie Delights range of frozen meals:
Topic : Ingredients
Message : Regarding your 'Vegie Delights' range, I was wondering why you don't strive to make these products vegan as well as vegetarian? As a vegetarian I enjoyed many of your products, especially the vegie mince but after cutting out animal products I am no longer able to eat them. (You don't list milk in the ingredients of vegie mince on this website, but it is on the packaging).
Surely it wouldn't be difficult to replace the small amount of egg white, milk, etc. with vegan friendly options? I'm sure no one would miss these things and you would add vegans to the list of people who purchase your range. You could also advertise them as cholesterol free, and friendly to the planet, as vegan food most often is.
I know many people who, being vegan, are prevented from eating the Vegie Delights range when they previously enjoyed them as vegetarians, and if you were to make the switch I know a lot of people that would be very happy and recommend your product to their friends.
Well, surprise surprise, they weren't too helpful. After two weeks I got this half-arsed response:
Dear Kirrilly,
Thank you for your enquiry regarding Vegie Delights. I am pleased to provide the following information.
Thank you for your feedback on the Vegie Delights range. I have passed your comments onto our marketing and product development departments for their consideration in regards to current and future products. Currently the Vegie Delights range are designed to be suitable for a lacto ovo vegetarian diet, as is the rest of the Sanitarium range of products. Product recipes are regularly reviewed in response to customer feedback, as well as other factors including advances in processing and ingredient technology.
We hope that you find our information helpful. Please feel free to contact us again for more information.
I invite you to join the mailing list for our Good Food News newsletter, which includes the latest nutrition research, tasty recipes, Sanitarium products and leaflet information. Please visit Sanitarium’s website at
www.sanitarium.com.au to subscribe to Good Food News on-line. You can also subscribe to our free recipe of the week email on our web site.
Yours Sincerely,
Simon Barden
Dietitian - Sanitarium Nutrition Services
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Maybe they will consider making their products vegan in the future? I certainly won't hold my breath. There's always Fry's, who make all their food animal derivative free.
If anyone else wants to drop Sanitarium an email it might help. If you have some spare time.
