If you run or want to run a vegan business, check out the existing vegan standards.

The growing number of plant-based companies, including meat/protein alternatives, means that there are more options for consumers to move away from animal-derived products and toward cruelty-free beauty and vegan food options. However, it isn’t uncommon to find labels in which a package claims that their product is “vegan” when they mean “vegetarian.” Even a small bit of dairy, eggs or honey (the common ingredients I see) make that difference.

Aside from trusting ingredient lists on products (which can still fool consumers if we don’t know how each ingredient is made), the only other way to determine whether a product is truly vegan is if a company has paid for a vegan standard, trademark, or certification. Below are the seals to look out for or obtain in specific regions.

Note: I will not be held responsible for any unethical companies who steal and use these logos without going through the proper process.

Canada

VegeCert is the only stoffered by a body in Canada, the Toronto Vegetarian Association. It involves an online application, submission of products and ingredients, and review by inspectors. You can see a list of approved companies here.

United States

Natural Food Certifiers offers a Vegan Natural Food Certifiers label for manufacturing, trading or distribution companies, vegan processors, or farm products. The site also lists “animals that originate from your farm facility” and I don’t know what that means, so if I was a food producer, I’d again defer to one of the certs below instead.

Available worldwide

Issued by BeVeg in Washington DC, this is the only law-reviewed, ISO standardized certification available to companies globally. You pay a $100 USD fee, undergo a questionnaire, submit documentation, and get approval. Certification is valid for 12 months and the annual fee is hefty, but this is the only certification that includes on-site third party audits.

PETA‘s Beauty Without Bunnies program is for beauty companies to ensure that products aren’t tested on animals. After approved, your company gets added to their list(s) and you have permission to use the logo. You have to e-mail them to request application materials.

IMO, they should just use “cruelty-free” or “vegan” and not both, because having either/or makes it super confusing and I’m left wondering whether there’s still cruelty involved if a company uses the “vegan” logo, or whether “cruelty-free” indicates that ingredients are vegan.

Issued by the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics in the USA, the Leaping Bunny Logo is also for cosmetics companies located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and throughout much of the European Union. You can look at their site for the criteria–companies purchase the logo for a nominal, one-time fee, but there’s no cost for companies to apply, get approved, and be listed in all versions of their Compassionate Shopping Guide and marketing materials.

Because PETA has enough money to create yet another standard for the rest of the non-beauty businesses, they have a PETA-Approved Vegan logo. Companies complete the questionnaire and statement of assurance and submit the $250 USD annual fee. Once these have been received and processed, a staff member contacts you to discuss next steps.

The Brand Recognition Compliance Global Standard (BRCGS), a UK-based organization that helps build confidence in supply chains, has several global standards, including one for plant-based products. It claims to be “the most robust certification program owner in the Food Safety industry with over 30,000 sites accredited to [their] standards across the supply chain.”

This just popped up on LinkedIn yesterday, and it’s a UK-based organization that’s certifying both people and businesses as Vegan Founded.

One of the most popular standards offered by The Vegan Society in the UK, the Vegan Trademark has been around for 30 years. There’s a four-step registration process, and people can even report suspected misuse of the trademark through an online form.

Like the mark above, the certified Vegan Logo is a registered trademark offered by Vegan Action in the USA, for products that do not contain animal products or byproducts and that have not been tested on animals. It’s currently on thousands of products manufactured by over 1000 companies. The annual fee starts at $150, with a $100 non-refundable application fee. The review takes about 4-6 weeks.

Certified Animal-Free is the only program that conducts laboratory testing for the detection of animal-derived ingredients in medications, managed by pharmacist-founded VeganMed in San Francisco, CA.

The Vegan Organic Network standard is specifically for vegan organic farmers worldwide. Companies must adhere to vegan organic farming standards, and membership and use of the logo is administered by an organization of the same name.

The Cyprus-based International Biocyclic Vegan Network of associations, private individuals, companies and institutions involved in agriculture, processing, trade and science administer the Biocyclic Vegan Standard. Similar to Vegan Organic, it is available worldwide as a global standard for vegan organic farming accredited by IFOAM.

The Vegetarian Society introduced the Plant-Based Trademark in 2024 due to demand from manufacturers and the market.

Other international vegan standards by region

The V-Label trademark has been available for European Union countries since 1996, and is administered by Switzerland-based V-Label GmbH.

Australia

Choose Cruelty-Free is Australia’s only independent body that caters to cosmetics, personal care and household care items that have not been tested on animals. You have to meet their criteria, pay a one-time $100 AUD fee and an annual fee to license the registered trademark, based on your annual sales.

The Vegan Australia Certified logo is a simple and reliable symbol for vegan products and services. Companies must meet standards set by Vegan Australia: free from animal products, not tested on animals and no animal products used in the production process. After applying, companies sign a licensing agreement and pay an annual fee.

Korea

I can’t tell you much about this standard, but this makes me hopeful because I’ve been told that Korea was a very un-friendly place for vegans. Vegan Korea has 325+ products with the seal, so that’s promising!

Japan

Vege Project in Japan offers 3 marks: Two for products (Vegetarian and Vegan), and one (Vegan) for restaurants. I’m super excited about this because I’ve visited Japan a bunch of times but not as a vegan, so this will make it a bit more helpful to ID safe restaurants next time I’m there.

Italy

Please visit the websites for more info.

As it pertains to medical prescriptions, in 2019, the Michigan Delegation of the American Medical Association requested that manufacturers:
(1) support efforts to improve cultural awareness pertaining to the use of animal-derived medications when considering different prescription options and
(2) encourage the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make available to the public an easily accessible database that identifies medications containing ingredients derived from animals (AMA 2019).

PETA’s done a great job of keeping a database of cruelty-free beauty products, but if a database ever gets made for medications, I’ll share that here as well.

If I’m missed any important vegan standards or if you’ve had a personal experience with one of them, let me know.