What "Vegan" Legally Means — and Doesn't

Unlike "organic," the term "vegan" has no federal legal definition in the United States. The FDA and USDA do not regulate vegan labeling claims on packaged foods. Any manufacturer can print "vegan" on a package without verification, audit, or certification.[1]

This creates a meaningful gap between self-declared vegan labels and certified vegan products. Third-party certification bodies fill that gap by auditing ingredient sourcing, processing environments, and in some cases animal testing policies — and issuing a certified seal only to products that meet their documented standard.

No Federal Regulation

The FDA has not established a formal definition of "vegan" for food labeling. A product may carry a vegan claim based solely on the manufacturer's self-assessment. Only third-party certification provides independent verification.

The Three Major Vegan Certifications

Vegan Action — Certified Vegan Logo

Vegan Action, a nonprofit founded in 1995, administers the most widely recognized vegan certification in North America.[2] Their Certified Vegan logo requires that products contain no animal products or byproducts, and that the product and its ingredients have not been tested on animals. Vegan Action reviews ingredient declarations and supplier documentation before issuing certification. Products are reviewed annually.

BeVeg International

BeVeg is an accredited vegan certification firm operating globally, with ISO 17065 accreditation — meaning their certification process meets the international standard for product certification bodies.[3] BeVeg conducts on-site audits and document review, and its certification covers ingredients, manufacturing processes, and cross-contamination controls. BeVeg certification is increasingly common on products sold internationally and in natural food retailers.

American Vegetarian Association (AVA)

The AVA offers both vegetarian and vegan certification. Their vegan certification requires that products contain no animal flesh, dairy, eggs, honey, gelatin, or other animal-derived ingredients.[4] The AVA logo appears on food, supplements, personal care products, and pet food. Their standard also prohibits animal testing of final products.

CertificationAuditsNo animal testingHoney excluded
Vegan Action (Certified Vegan)Document review✓ Yes✓ Yes
BeVeg InternationalOn-site + documents✓ Yes✓ Yes
American Vegetarian AssociationDocument review✓ Yes✓ Yes

Vegan Beyond Food: Apparel and Beauty

The vegan filter on TheGoodFilter spans more than just the grocery aisle. Two adjacent categories are particularly relevant:

  • Vegan apparel: Conventional fashion uses leather, wool, silk, down, and animal-derived dyes. Vegan-certified apparel substitutes vegan leather (often plant-based — apple, cactus, or Piñatex pineapple-leaf — or recycled polyurethane), vegan silk (cupro, Tencel, or bamboo), and synthetic down. The PETA-Approved Vegan mark is the most common third-party seal in this category.
  • Vegan beauty: Personal care products commonly contain animal byproducts — beeswax in lip balm, lanolin in moisturizer, carmine in red lipstick, keratin from feathers in conditioner. Vegan beauty certification (PETA, Leaping Bunny's vegan tier, or BeVeg) verifies these are absent and that no testing on animals occurred. Note that "vegan" and "cruelty-free" are not synonyms — a product can be one without the other.

For both categories, the source of our vegan tag differs from food. Apparel rows surfaced via Impactbytes carry certificate slugs (peta, vegansociety) and material slugs (vegaleather, vegansilk, 100vegan); beauty rows from AWIN/CJ are flagged from word-bounded copy matches.

Vegan vs. Vegetarian: What's the Difference?

Vegetarian products exclude meat, poultry, and seafood — but may contain dairy products, eggs, and honey. Vegan products exclude all animal-derived ingredients, including dairy, eggs, honey, beeswax, gelatin, lanolin, and certain food colorings derived from insects (such as carmine / cochineal extract).[5]

This distinction matters most for processed foods where animal-derived ingredients appear in unexpected places: gelatin in marshmallows and gummy candies, casein (a milk protein) in some non-dairy cheeses, shellac (derived from lac beetles) as a glazing agent on confectionery, and L-cysteine (often derived from poultry feathers) as a dough conditioner in commercial bread.

What Vegan Certification Doesn't Cover

  • Nutritional quality: Vegan certification verifies ingredient sourcing, not health outcomes. Highly processed vegan foods may be high in sodium, added sugars, or refined oils.
  • Organic or pesticide-free: Vegan and organic are independent standards. A certified vegan product may be made with conventionally grown, pesticide-treated crops.
  • Fair labor practices: Vegan certification does not address worker conditions in the supply chain.
  • Environmental sustainability: Palm oil, often used in vegan products as a butter substitute, is associated with significant deforestation and biodiversity loss.[6]

How We Score Vegan on The Goods Filter

The vegan filter is populated from three sources, with confidence varying by source quality:

  • Open Food Facts labels (food, ~0.85 confidence): Products carrying en:vegan, en:certified-vegan, or en:vegan-society tags from the Open Food Facts community are accepted at high confidence.
  • Impactbytes certs & materials (apparel/beauty, ~0.85 confidence): Brands tagged with peta or vegansociety, or products built from vegaleather, vegansilk, or 100vegan material slugs.
  • Keyword backfill on title/description (~0.75 confidence): AWIN and CJ rows whose copy contains word-bounded matches like vegan, certified vegan, PETA-approved vegan, or plant-based.
Display threshold70%

The 0.70 display threshold means a product must clear at least the keyword-backfill tier before the Vegan badge appears. Certified products (~0.85) sit comfortably above the line; ambiguous keyword-only matches still display but are flagged for editorial review.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is vegan the same as plant-based?

No. "Plant-based" is a marketing term with no regulated definition in the U.S. A product labeled plant-based may still contain honey, dairy derivatives, or animal-derived processing aids. Certified vegan requires formal third-party verification that a product contains no animal-derived ingredients and was not processed on shared equipment.

Does vegan mean no honey?

Yes. All major vegan certification bodies — Vegan Action, BeVeg, and AVA — exclude honey, beeswax, and other bee-derived ingredients from certified products. Honey bees are animals, and their products are excluded from the vegan standard. This is the most common difference between vegan and vegetarian labels.

What certifies a product as vegan?

The three primary U.S. certification bodies are Vegan Action (the Certified Vegan logo, vegan.org), BeVeg International (ISO 17065 accredited), and the American Vegetarian Association. Each requires no animal-derived ingredients. BeVeg additionally conducts on-site facility audits.

Is vegan food always healthy?

No. Vegan certification verifies the absence of animal products — it makes no claim about nutritional value, sugar content, processing level, or caloric density. Many certified vegan products are ultra-processed foods high in refined carbohydrates, sodium, or saturated fats from coconut or palm oil. Certification is an ingredient sourcing standard, not a health standard.

Footnotes
  1. 1U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2024). Labeling & nutrition — food labeling guide. The FDA has not established a formal regulatory definition for the term "vegan" on food labels. https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/labeling-nutrition ↩
  2. 2Vegan Action. (2024). Certified Vegan logo program. https://vegan.org/certification/ ↩
  3. 3BeVeg International. (2024). ISO 17065 accredited vegan certification standard. https://beveg.com/vegan-certification/ ↩
  4. 4American Vegetarian Association. (2024). AVA certification standards. https://americanvegetarian.org/certification ↩
  5. 5The Vegan Society. (2024). Definition of veganism. Veganism excludes all animal products including dairy, eggs, and honey. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism ↩
  6. 6Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. (2023). Palm oil and deforestation. https://rspo.org/key-issues/deforestation/ ↩

References