Where can I buy vegan products?

If you want to buy a certain type of product but don’t know where to get a vegan version from, this section shows you how to find vegan-suitable products.

This section shows you how to find:

• Vegan ‘equivalent’ food products (e.g. vegan cream, cheese, marshmallows…)
• Vegan cosmetics and household products
• General products (e.g. winter coats, mattresses, mince pies, cake decorations…)

Where can I get vegan…

…cheese/cream/marshmallows/yoghurt/etc.?

In the UK, vegan versions of normally non-vegan food products can be found:

• in the supermarket
• in vegan-friendly wholefoods shops
• in Holland and Barrett
• from online shops

See the'vegan equivalent products' page on our Guide to Vegan Living website to see what kinds of vegan alternative products are available and where to buy them from.

Also search the Trademarked Products section to find vegan products which are registered with The Vegan Society

…cosmetics and household products?

• Look for Vegan Society Trademarked products
• Search the internet for the word ‘vegan’ and the type of product you wish to buy, e.g. ‘vegan mascara’
• Browse vegan-friendly online shops or wholefoods shops to see what products they have that are labelled vegan
• Some high street shops stock Vegan Society Trademarked products (such as Lush) or label their own-brand products (such as Superdrug or the Co-op)
• Seek information from companies whose products you already use or you have seen in the shops. Contact them to ask which of their products are suitable for vegans, or look on their websites for this information.

…mattresses/meals on wheels/gardening gloves/mince pies/formal shoes/ski jackets/cake decorations/bread/sticky tape/winter coats/other general product?

A lot of food and non-food products have versions that just happen to be vegan or free from animal ingredients.  There are relatively few products that are actually difficult to find in an animal-free version.

Usually the best wasy to find vegan-suitable products are:

Look at the available products in the place(s) where you would normally buy them

• Go to the place you would normally buy that product (i.e. supermarket, clothing shop, furniture shop, online shops, online supermarket)
• Locate the available products of the type you wish to buy.
• Look at the ingredients of the products/see what materials the products are made from, to identify which ones are suitable for vegans.

If you’re buying a particular product from a specialist shop, you can ask a member of staff to show you which of their products are animal-free.

Search the internet

Search the internet for ‘vegan [name of product]’.

Also try using other relevant search terms in place of ‘vegan’ to describe the product.  Consider how a vegan-suitable version of the product might be described by the company, for example ‘wool-free’, ‘non-leather’, ‘dairy-free’ or ‘synthetic’, and try using this description in your search.

Seek information from companies which sell the type of product you wish to buy

If you can’t tell which products in a particular range are suitable for vegans by looking at their ingredients list or description, you can seek this information from the company which sells or produces the products.

Have a look at the company’s website for information about which of their products are suitable for vegans.

This information might be:

• on their FAQ page
• on the pages describing individual products
• or they might publish a list of their vegan-suitable products

If you can’t find this information on their website, contact the company directly.