Last week, I posted an article on how Masterfoods, the UK manufacturer of Mars bars and other chocolate favorites, changed their recipes to include rennet from calves stomachs.  Masterfoods had decided to switch where they bought their ingredients from and the new supplier was using rennet to produce whey.  Whey does not need to be produced in this manner and most of it is actually made as a by-product of cheese manufacturing.  This is how the previous supplier produced it.

Vegetarians in the UK were outraged, and rightfully so.  They didn’t just sit around and moan about it though.  They bombarded Masterfoods with phone calls and emails telling them how pissed they were about the companies’ decision.  The Vegetarian Society also stepped in to issue statements to news outlets and raise public awareness about Masterfoods decision. 

This was an successful campaign,  Masterfoods listened to the complaints and switched their recipes back.

Fiona Dawnson, managing director of Mars UK, said, “It because very clear, very quickly that we had made a mistake, for which I am sorry. There are three million vegetarians in the UK and not only did we disappoint them, bet we upset a lot of the consumers.”

It just goes to show that companies are willing to listen and change their practices if consumers tell them what they are doing is wrong.  This is not only a win for vegetarians, it also demonstrates that people are beginning to tune in to what they are eating and demanding that companies do the right thing.  We have seen this recently with Burger King, Wolfgang Puck and some grocery store chains.

read the Masterfoods article here

Author Information -  During his spare time Eric writes for and maintains wannaveg.com. For his day job he works for an electronics company in San Diego, CA. Eric has been a vegetarian for about 10 years and believes that going 'green' and reducing meat consumption go hand-in-hand.

Tags: Food, vegetarian