A growing number of consumers are adopting a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle due to health, animal and environmental concerns. With the global rise of the vegan movement, the demand for meatless food is increasing exponentially. For an increasing number of vegan and vegetarian consumers every year, the most important issue is the reliability of the products and the manufacturer.

For example; How to make sure that a vegan sausage is completely processed without meat and animal products? In order to get answers to such questions, vegan - vegetarian tests should be applied to the product in an impartial, independent and accredited laboratory.

Vegan - How is the Vegetarian Test Applied?

With the increasing demand for Vegetarian and Vegan Test offers, it has become imperative to verify these claims. Verification of products with vegan vegetarian tests is possible by testing the chemicals used in the production of materials in a laboratory environment to determine whether any animal products or by-products are used. Vegan Validation helps brands and retailers accurately identify materials using a phased approach that covers the manufacturing of ingredients, chemical management, risk assessment, and testing of ingredients to achieve vegan certification.

Together with its solution partner, Intertek Laboratories, which is impartial, independent and internationally accredited, V-Mark can offer a non-specific meat detection test based on DNA and ideally suited for the detection of meat contamination in vegan and/or vegetarian products.

Components that traditionally make analysis ineffective are easily detected above 0,005%, even in the presence of both milk and cheese. The due diligence of manufacturers and retailers to detect such incidental or fraudulent contamination in these products serves to secure vegans, vegetarians and ethnic groups with religious beliefs that they actually buy vegetarian or vegan food from the consumption of certain species.

Non-specific meat DNA detection uses Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). If the assay is negative, DNA is absent (LOD 0,005%) - if positive, consider looking at speciation to identify existing meat (s). The analysis detects specific DNA found in a gene that is a universal component of muscle tissue - hence universally applicable and detects all animal DNA including human and fish, meaning it is not species specific. If the verification is for vegan products, additional tests to show that the respective milk (lactose, casein or beta-lactoglobulin) and egg are also absent - all analyzes are done on site.

What Are the Benefits of Vegan Vegetarian Tests?

• For manufacturers, gaining high confidence by the consumer and gaining advantage in the market
• Assurance that any chemistry used in the production of products / materials is not of animal origin
• Independent third party verification and certification process supported by DNA testing
• Development of chemical management systems for vegan materials that go beyond the absence of animal-derived materials such as leather, feathers and fur
• Advantage to manufacturers, brands and retailers to approve products as "animal free" and "vegan friendly"
• Education and awareness for manufacturers, brands and retailers