Mars products become non vegetarian.

Tar.Aldarion

The Vegetarian Society is extremely disappointed to learn that Mars favourites such as Mars, Milky Way, Bounty, Snickers, Galaxy, Twix and Maltesers are now all unsuitable for vegetarians. At a time when more and more consumers are
concerned about the provenance of their food, Masterfoods’ decision to use non-vegetarian whey is a backward step. Mars products are very popular with young people and many will be shocked to discover that their manufacture now relies on the extraction of rennet from the stomach lining of young calves. Please contact Masterfoods Customer Services on 0845 045 0042 to express your concern.

http://www.vegsoc.org/news/2007/mars.html
I emailed Masterfoods about this.

embraer170

What Mars, Bounty etc. ingredient contain rennet?

Shame I like the odd twix.

Nature Boy

What a dark day to be veggie

I too emailed them

silja

Wow that sucks, I like a Bounty when I am working late. I mean, it's just chocolate and coconut.... I didn't even think about how these sweets could be non-veggie before.

Thanks for posting this!

jhegarty

Seems like a silly business decision....

Nature Boy

jhegarty wrote:

Seems like a silly business decision....

Exactly, they're just making a lot of hassle for themselves. I'm sure they've already gotten lots of emails, letters, calls etc.

Tar.Aldarion

Their competitors will benefit.

Nature Boy

Here's the initial response I got:

Masterfoods wrote:

Dear Peter,

Thank you for contacting us.

I was sorry to learn you are not happy with the recent vegetarian suitable product list you have received.

I can assure you that all of your comments have been passed to the relavent department regarding this matter.

One again thank you for taking the time to contact us.

If you need any further information or advice please contact our Consumer Careline on the telephone number below and one of our Consumer Care Advisors will be more than happy to help you.

Kind regards.

Karen Wood
Consumer Care Team
0800 952 1234

I'm sure anyone else that sent one would get the same response!

Tar.Aldarion

Not quite.

Hello Paul,

Thank you for contacting us.

I was sorry to learn you are not happy with the recent vegetarian suitable product list.



I can assure you that all of your comments have been passed to the relavent department regarding this matter.



One again thank you for taking the time to contact us.

If you need any further information or advice please contact our Consumer Careline on the telephone number below and one of our Consumer Care Advisors will be more than happy to help you.

Kind regards.

Louise Nelson
Consumer Care Team
0800 952 1234

Nature Boy

Jesus, they changed "Hello Paul" to "Hello Peter" and added "you have recieved" onto one of the sentences. I'm impressed

Tar.Aldarion

Now that is customer care.

Vegeta

will this really hurt them though?

What % of the population is vegetarian? More importantly what % of the vegetarian population will even notice.

You can bet your ass they did some cost benefit analysis and added the money saved using the new ingredient and then subtracted the sales lost to vegetarians who would actually notice this and still came out making money.

Nature Boy

Oh yeah of course. That doesn't mean we shouldn't annoy them about it!

Tar.Aldarion

Well since they are a big company and there are more vegetarians in britain than people in Ireland, it could hurt a little. Vegetarians notice. We always read the ingrediants heh.
Plus we need to annoy them to get maltesers back :d

Vegeta

Of course, annoy the crap out of them, I don't think i'd eat their products now becuase of this change and I do eat meat....


....runs and hides

Tar.Aldarion

Hide faster you lowly pescetarian lover!
:P

Nature Boy

Why the username 'Vegeta' then??

Tar.Aldarion

Vegeta is a character from Dragonball Z, an anime cartoon that I love. All the characters names are vegetables.

Vegeta

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Vegeta is a character from Dragonball Z, an anime cartoon that I love. All the characters names are vegetables.

but i thought i was the only one who could love such a show. I have figurines and the bed clothing set........I'm 24

edit: back on topic, I support your war with masterfoods so I will send them an angrly worded e-mail

Jimoslimos

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Well since they are a big company and there are more vegetarians in britain than people in Ireland, it could hurt a little. Vegetarians notice. We always read the ingrediants heh.

Not a veggie myself but from living in England (London specifically) I'd imagine they'd have a bigger problem with a large muslim population not buying their problems (unlikely to have any guarantee that the animal was killed halal). And from experience I know muslims who examine ingredients just as closely as any vegetarian.

silja

I see the customer care department cannot spell "relevant"....

I'd say between the health concious people, the veggies and the muslims/ Jews, there is a sizeable portion of the market they have lost.

But this thread makes me think: are other sweets/ chocolate bars even vegetarian?

Tar.Aldarion

There are a lot of vegetarian sweets and bars. There are many that are not though. M&Ms, polo fruits. etc.

Oobie

I got the same reply when I emailed. I don't eat the products that often but it would be nice to have the option.

Mr. Presentable

Until relatively recently most sweets and bars contained gelatin or rennet. The "suitable for vegetarians" campaign was really for marketing. Obviously, the usage of substitute agents is not offset by the increased sales to vegetarians. So now it is about business, pure and simple.

From my point of view as an omnivore, hopefully their products will start tasting properly again.

Tar.Aldarion

I haven't come across a bar or sweet that said suitable for vegetarians that wasn't.

What product exactly, started to not taste 'properly'?

Mr. Presentable

No Tar, what I meant was, they started making veggie friendly products in an attempt to win a new market - the vegetarian one.

Maybe it's my old taste buds, but all the confections of my childhood have diminished in flavour as they became "healthy". Wine gums, Tayto Cheese and Onion, Mars Bars, swizzle sticks (yeah, I know, I'm a bit old for swizzle sticks :rolleyes: )

Tar.Aldarion

Ah heh, dunno, I don't really eat those things, but they seem to be adding less and less salt which makes things like crisps taste far worse, like with cheese and onion. They taste so bland now.
Wine gums aren't vegetarian are they? I miss them.

kraggy

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Wine gums aren't vegetarian are they? I miss them.

no they're not. gelatine.

InFront

no they're not. gelatine.

The gelatine might be vegetarian (yes, such a thing exists!) I've eaten vegetarian/ halal gelatin food, apparently it's made from plant extracts or something (well I trusted the person who told me that:) )

Do vegetarians usually not eat food derived from dead animal products? As silly as that question might sound, the vegetarians I know eat cheeses, and chocolates that are (in Islam) Haram because of animal fats. Or are they just not being strict vegetarians?

Cathy

There's no such thing as vegetable gelatine, but there are vegetarian-friendly substitutes like carrageen. Gelatine is much more commonly used, unfortunately.

Most cheeses are vegetarian-friendly these days, as far as I know, but it's worth checking the labels anyway. I try to stay away from anything non-vegetarian, but some people don't know (or don't care) about the animal products in foods like jellies and mints and just stay away from the obvious things.

sweet-rasmus

ok, i filled out the comment form. said i wouldn't be buying any more of their products. i once loved mars *sigh*

thanks for the heads up Tar

Tar.Aldarion

InFront wrote:

The gelatine might be vegetarian (yes, such a thing exists!) I've eaten vegetarian/ halal gelatin food, apparently it's made from plant extracts or something (well I trusted the person who told me that:) )

There is no such thing as vegetarian gelatin as cathy said, although I'm sure your friend just used that term not to confuse you, 'it's like a vegetarian geletin'. Your friend was probably referring to pectin or another alternative that is used.

However pre-gelatinized wheat starch is vegetarian, but that is something different.

Do vegetarians usually not eat food derived from dead animal products? As silly as that question might sound, the vegetarians I know eat cheeses, and chocolates that are (in Islam) Haram because of animal fats. Or are they just not being strict vegetarians?

I imagine they are just not strict and although not wholly vegetarian, try to live the lifestyle as best they can.
They eat cheeses with animal rennet you mean?

princess k

hiya,thanks for the heads up on this. im 1 of those veggies that reads every ingredient on foodstuffs...it was getting easier as so many manufacturers had the suitable logo displayed. cannot believe they have done this. i sent an e-mail,havent had reply yet,no doubt it will be as pathetic as the other replies they sent out.

igtica

Thanks for pasting this across from the veggie society site. It's really frustrating that a company as big as mars have taken such a big step backwards. It's seems odd to cut out a quickly increasing part of society. It's seems so odd to add an animal by-product when they are able to create their products without. I hope that we get a reaction from mars, although it's not likely.

sportswear

tar how are m+m's not vegitarian?


i am extremely pissed off about this. more so by the fact that it won't be labelled in their products. a lot of people won't know about this.

jelly tots are veg!

Tar.Aldarion

Jelly tots are vegan I thought M&Ms were not vegetarian, but 'm not sure, I'll have to read a packet.

InFront

Yeah M&Ms are not vegetarian.

Tar.Aldarion

What is in them?

InFront

I don't know really, all I know is that they're not vegetarian. It seems like it might be rennet, judging by this link, but it isn't explicitly clear what the reason is.
http://www.scouseveg.co.uk/2007/04/30/mars-confectionary-no-longer-vegetarian/

Nature Boy

What are skittles fruits? Are they the regular ones?

It's pretty grim viewing looking at the long list of their products that are no longer veggie

sportswear

i think skittles are ok here but the american ones have gelatine. i can't see anything sinister in the ingredients.

please correct me if im wrong

nervous_twitch

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

There are a lot of vegetarian sweets and bars. There are many that are not though. M&Ms, polo fruits. etc.

Polo fruits were definitely vegetarian at some stage.. has this changed?!

Tar.Aldarion

I believe they are not, I'll check it out for you again at some stage. If they are not it is due to the red dye that would have been used for the red one.

r3nu4l

I'm not a vegetarian and obviously this is just a business decision designed to increase profit but it is sad nonetheless. I don't seek out vegetarian products at all but am quite happy to eat something that has been made with vegetraians in mind.

The more vegetarians the better imo, that means more red meat, poultry, eggs and fish for me

Tar.Aldarion

Vegetarians eat eggs mostly.

r3nu4l

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Vegetarians eat eggs mostly.

Wtf? Why? There is no way an egg can be called vegetable matter! It's animal protein!

Tar.Aldarion

r3nu4l wrote:

Wtf? Why? There is no way an egg can be called vegetable matter! It's animal protein!

You are thinking of a vegan, not a vegetarian. You may need to look up the difference.
In this case I would be referring to Lacto-ovo vegetarians or ovo-vegetarians.

r3nu4l

Well, you learn something new everyday!

In fairness then, the term vegetarian is misleading as all vegetarians do eat animal products of one sort or another, they simply don't eat meat. Shouldn't vegetarians simply be called meat-avoiders? I know that sounds trollish but I'm serious, I'm actually disappointed!



/Perhaps this thread isn't the best place for discussing this topic.

Tar.Aldarion

r3nu4l wrote:

Well, you learn something new everyday!

In fairness then, the term vegetarian is misleading as all vegetarians do eat animal products of one sort or another, they simply don't eat meat. Shouldn't vegetarians simply be called meat-avoiders? I know that sounds trollish but I'm serious, I'm actually disappointed!



/Perhaps this thread isn't the best place for discussing this topic.

We do not eat anything that comes from the death of an animal, this includes many products that are commonly found in sweets and other foods like jelly, marshmellows etc etc.

Before the term vegetarian was coined we were called Pythagoreans, after the mathematician/philosopher.

r3nu4l

I prefer the term Pythagoreans so...although I suspect not all vegetarians are great thinkers It's funny I always thought that those 'vegetarians' who ate eggs or dairy products were cheating somehow! Looks like they were legit (although I still think it's a copout!).

Either way, to get back on-topic is there an online petition to gather Pythagorean opinion into one resource that can be presented to Masterfoods? I think it's a very backward move tbh and would sign such a petition even as a non-Pythagorean!

Vegeta

I was thinking about this too over the weekend.

The way I see it (in my very narrow and cultureless mind, which is open to correction) is that people are vegetarians on moral grounds.

So obviously you don't want animals suffering, then why would you drink milk or eat eggs, butter etc etc etc. If you object to using animal products on moral grounds then why not go the whole nine yards and become a vegan.

Or is it ok to have natural organic products, like eggs that come from chickens who don't sit in a cage 24hrs a day under artifical lighting etc

I know there are varying degrees of dedication but I'd say its tough being a vegetarian.