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