‘Suitable for vegans’ is no guarantee chocolate is milk free

Last week (12-2-2010) the Anaphylaxis Campaign issued a news bulletin following more brand alerts of milk being found in non milk chocolate, and chocolate labelled ‘suitable for vegans’.

Plain Chocolate - advice for people with severe milk allergy:

The Anaphylaxis Campaign has issued a number of food alerts over the past few years relating to product recall due to the presence of milk protein found in plain/dark chocolate. The milk was not an intended ingredient and was due to cross-contamination during the production process.

Due to the very high risk of cross-contamination of plain chocolate with milk protein, we would advise anyone with a severe milk allergy to be extremely cautious of plain chocolate. There are some specialist brands which are made in dedicated milk free facilities, but statements such as “suitable for vegans” is not necessarily a guarantee against contamination. We would advise contacting the manufacturer to gain assurance that there is no risk of contamination.

Plamil Foods has long been advising vegan organisations including the Vegan Society to take advantage of the new information allergy labelling regulations provide to prevent what Plamil consider a ‘watering down’ of vegan standards.

Plamil Foods Director Adrian Ling stated:

It is evident that many vegan organisations seem to have adopted a ‘casual vegan’ approach in the belief that, for instance, milk contamination in chocolate is due to ‘slight possibility that there may be a draught which blows a milk particle across, which is really unlikely’.

Until allergy labelling provided additional information to consumers, those wishing to avoid all dairy, assumed that products labelled as ‘suitable for vegans’ never contained milk/eggs/fish or other animal ingredient and relied on manufactures and vegan trademarks. The issue for consumers is however now confusing, as the statement ‘suitable for vegans’ can no longer be relied upon as a guarantee a product is free from milk.

Ling continues:

The on going product alerts and recalls with some brands highlights the issue that contamination of milk, particularly in chocolate can be significant, but we can assure our customers this contamination is not a possibility with the Plamil brand.

Plamil chocolate in production - we can proudly state that all our products are truly dairy free.