Disclosure: I am currently developing a vegan assurance standard, VAS-01, through Vegan Certification Authority (veganauthority.au). That means I have a direct commercial interest in the subject matter of this post. I’ve tried to write this as honestly as I can regardless, and I’ll let you decide whether I’ve managed it. Everything I’ve written about the existing schemes is sourced directly from their published certification rules, both of which are publicly available through IP Australia.
Pick up almost any product in a vegan-friendly grocery store and you’ll find a logo claiming it’s certified vegan.
Most people read that as a straightforward assurance, someone checked, and it passed.
What most people don’t know is that in Australia, only two vegan certification marks have been formally assessed and approved by the ACCC under the Trade Marks Act 1995.
Every other vegan claim you see on a product label, and there are a lot of them, is either self-declared, uses a foreign mark with no Australian regulatory standing, or relies on something that hasn’t gone through the certification trade mark process at all.
I’ve read both sets of approved certification rules in full.
Here’s what I found.
The two approved marks are doing different things
This is the detail most commentary misses.
The two approved Australian vegan certification marks, Vegan Australia Certified and Vegan Certified Australia, are not competing versions of the same idea.
They operate on fundamentally different models.
Vegan Australia Certified is a product certification scheme.
A food or beverage manufacturer applies to have specific products assessed.
Vegan Australia (a registered charity) evaluates the application, ingredients, manufacturing process, cross-contamination controls, and if the product meets their standard, the manufacturer is licensed to display the mark on that product.
The annual licence fee is $150 plus $100 for every $100,000 of gross annual income from certified products.
The mark on the label tells you that specific product was assessed against a documented standard.
Vegan Certified Australia is a certifier certification scheme.
It doesn’t certify products directly, it certifies the people who assess products.
An individual applies to become an approved certifier, demonstrating their qualifications, industry experience, and understanding of veganism.
If approved, they’re entitled to use the mark to indicate their credentials as a certified vegan assessor.
The mark on a product tells you the person who assessed it holds VCA certification, not that the product itself was assessed against a defined technical standard.
Neither model is wrong.
They serve different purposes.
The confusion arises when consumers assume all vegan certification marks are doing the same thing, because they’re not.
What the existing standards actually require
Vegan Australia’s product standard is reasonable for what it is.
To be certified, a product must contain no animal-derived ingredients, must not have used animal products in the manufacturing process, must not have been tested on animals by the manufacturer or a related entity, and must take reasonable steps to minimise cross-contamination.
Ingredients with ambiguous origins, glycerine, natural flavourings, certain enzymes, require traceable supply chain confirmation.
That’s a workable ingredient-focused standard.
Where it stops is at the factory gate.
There’s no requirement for a documented management system, no internal audit programme, no formal corrective action process, no ongoing supplier verification beyond the initial application.
Annual renewal requires a new declaration that conditions haven’t changed.
The integrity of the claim rests largely on the accuracy of what the manufacturer tells Vegan Australia.
Vegan Certified Australia’s scheme is structured around the competence of the certifier rather than the product being certified.
Certifiers must have relevant industry qualifications (or equivalent experience), demonstrate understanding of ethical testing and veganism, and submit a witnessed statutory-style declaration.
The conflict of interest provision, certifiers must have no conflict of interest with candidates they assess, is present, though the rules don’t specify how this is verified in practice.
The gap I kept coming back to
After spending time in food safety, working with manufacturers on HACCP plans, food safety programs, and audit preparation, I kept noticing the same thing: the gap between a valid claim and a reliable claim is almost always a systems problem, not an ingredients problem.
A manufacturer can submit an accurate ingredient list in good faith on the day of application.
Twelve months later, a supplier changes a processing aid.
A new staff member skips a cleaning procedure.
A shared production line runs an animal-derived product before a vegan product without the required flush.
None of these require dishonesty to happen, they happen because systems fail, and they fail most often when there’s no ongoing requirement to look for them.
The existing schemes capture a point-in-time snapshot.
What they don’t create is an ongoing obligation to manage vegan claim integrity as a system.
What I’m trying to build, and why I’m saying so upfront
VAS-01 — the Vegan Assurance Standard I’m developing through Vegan Certification Authority, is structured as a management system standard, aligned with the Global Food Safety Initiative’s benchmarking framework.
It requires organisations to establish and maintain a documented Vegan Claim Management System, conduct a vegan risk assessment, operate an approved supplier programme, implement segregation and cross-contact controls, maintain traceability, run internal audits, and manage non-conformances through a corrective action process.
It’s designed to sit alongside an existing food safety certification, not replace it, and to be audited by an accredited certification body rather than assessed by the scheme owner.
VAS-01 is still in development.
The current edition is a working draft, and it will change before it’s finalised.
I’m being transparent about that because I think the vegan community deserves to know when someone writing about certification has a stake in the outcome, and because a standard that can’t withstand honest scrutiny during development probably can’t withstand an audit after it.
If you want to follow the development of VAS-01, or if you work in food manufacturing and want to provide feedback on the draft, you can find more at veganauthority.au.
In the meantime: when you see a vegan certification mark, it’s worth knowing what it’s actually telling you, and what it isn’t.