Green&Blacks remove vegan labelling

lil'one

http://www.greenandblacks.com/uk/newsdetails.php?cpage=0&cp=0

Just got this link from a friend and thought i'd share. kinda sucks:(

oblivious

I always presumed it was milk free and why where they adding milk?

armada104

oblivious wrote: »

I always presumed it was milk free and why where they adding milk?

Read the press statement.

lil'one, I'd be entirely comfortable eating that chocolate. From a moral point of view, you're still not buying milk. If tiny amounts of contamination make it into the dark chocolate that's not your fault. Surely you realised they were made in the same factory before the labelling was changed anyway? The label change seems to be geared towards people who are allergic to milk.

lil'one

of course i was aware they were being made in the same factory, i presumed on different lines, i'm sure many vegans would be happy to continue eating g&b's, but i'm sure many vegans would also prefer to be certain they didn't ingest any animal products, its a personal choice:)

the beer revolu

Green and Blacks is highly overrated chocolate anyway.
They have the marketing might of Cadbury's behind them which gets them into all the supermarkets but I find their chocolate very artificial tasting.

Divine Faritrade 70% (available Tesco) is far better and cheaper.

Peanut

I like Green and Blacks a lot, it's good chocolate, and they were successful on their own terms long before Cadburys bought them out. But I prefer Montezumas

the beer revolu

Peanut wrote: »

I like Green and Blacks a lot, it's good chocolate, and they were successful on their own terms long before Cadburys bought them out. But I prefer Montezumas

Ya, its a personal thing, I just really don't like the taste of G&B.

Never tried Montezumas.

My favourite is Galler Belgian Chocolate but I've never seen it here.

Tar.Aldarion

There are far nicer chocolates, not the end of the world.

sweet-rasmus

thanks for the heads up lil'one it was always comforting to get that vegan symbol there. I suppose I'd never imagined that any dark chocolate bar was made on a line of it's own, far far away from milk chocolate. i suppose that most dark choc bars i've eaten do say "may contain traces of milk".

Ok, i'll go through some of the chocolate packaging i have:

Divine 70% Dark Chocolate:"May contain traces of nuts, milk and gluten"

Ecuador Premium Cocoa 70% (Lidl i think): "May contain traces of hazelnuts, almonds and milk solids"

Wilde Irish Organic Chocolate 70% Cocoa: "Allergen Information: May contain traces of milk protein and nuts"

Lindt 70% cocoa (French pack): "Puet contenir des traces de lécithine de soja, des noisettes, d'amandes et de lait" (lait = milk)

Green and Black's Organic Dark Chocolate (I seem to have the new packaging here - no vegan symbol): "Manufactured in a factory that handles nut, cereal and dairy ingrediants. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans". Funny that they take away the vegan symbol, yet still call it vegan.

Celtic Dairy free Fine Dark Chocolate has no such warning. "Celtic Free From Fine Dark Chocolate is suitable for Coeliacs, Vegans, Vegetarians, and those on a Dairy, Egg or Wheat Free Diet"
email: celtchoc@iol.ie
Might be worth emailing them and double checking their status.:)

Another interesting one is Plamil's dairy free alternative to Mint Chocolate and their Organic orange chocolate. Both have the vegan symbol. "No animal, dairy,wheat/gluten or hidden ingredient is ever used and we never use chocolate from other suppliers, or even contract packers to make our products. Plamils factory is powered by 100% renewable energy." "Allergy Information: Contains soya. May contain traces of Hazelnuts. Dairy - Lactose Free"


Makes you think

sweet-rasmus

I emailed Celtic Chocolates just half an hour ago and got a swift reply:

Well spotted. There has been a big move in the UK to clear up 'freefrom' labelling after milk traces were found in a lot of dark chocolate products.

At Celtic Chocolates we operate a mixed line where we have both dedicated dark chocolate parts and some common equipment with milk. In this case about 90% of the food contact surfaces on our process equipment are interchanged when we move from milk to dark and vice versa. The rest are cleaned and swabbed using a rapid test kit to detect residual casein which is the protein in milk and is the part that is 'stickiest' with regard to removal by cleaning.

The final check is that the first product off each production run is sent to a laboratory in England where they test it for casein at the level of .00025%; this is the limit at which casein is detectable.

We have a robust regime of segregating raw materials, work in process, finished goods, utensils and all suppliers of raw materials have been vetted to ensure that their ingredients and production systems also conform to what we call the 'freefrom standard' and we also laboratory test our incoming raw materials for residual casein.

Our 'freefrom' regime is part of our Quality Management System and is audited annually by the British Retail Consortium who act on behalf of the UK food retailers. We also get an annual audit from Sainsbury's for whom we make Private Label dairy free products.

Hope this gives you some idea of what we do to back up our claim that the products are indeed dairy free.

Glad you like the products.

Tar.Aldarion

Well done by them. :-)
Emailed thanks for the reply.

Peanut

Wow nice reply from them. It says a lot about a company when they go into that much detail to respond to their customers queries.

Tar.Aldarion

Especially when it was within 20 minutes on a saturday. He also replied to me thanking me. He sounded a bit sad to be working on a saturday.

sweet-rasmus

but we appreciate him!

t-ha

TBH this deosn't bother me that much - when I buy dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate I'm voting with my money for the dairy free product. Small traces of whatever doen't change that - though obviously to each their own.

sweet-rasmus

those traces of dairy can be important to those with serious allergies or on moral reasons (vegans).

Tar.Aldarion

Yeah, it will be fine for some vegans and not for others, as with most things.

Weyhey

I am vegetarian not vegan but I can understand why some vegans would be upset by this....

Also far play to Celtic for their reply about their chocolates....

Also also - on another note when visiting Glasgow last year I noticed that some veggie cafe's or restaurants mentioned that vegan food was prepared and cooked seperately to vegan food. I was very impressed.

dynastygal

I stopped buying them since I found out Cadbury's owned them anyway. But thanks for the heads up, I still know some people who buy them who'll want to know.

the beer revolu

dynastygal wrote: »

I stopped buying them since I found out Cadbury's owned them anyway. But thanks for the heads up, I still know some people who buy them who'll want to know.

The fact that it's just poor artificial tasting chocolate is reason enough not to buy it for me!

Peanut

dynastygal wrote: »

I stopped buying them since I found out Cadbury's owned them anyway. But thanks for the heads up, I still know some people who buy them who'll want to know.

I'm curious about the opinion on Cadburys.. I wasn't aware that they were an especially more unsavoury company than any of the other big ones. Well nothing like Nestlé at least.

They were also the first big consumer brand to put vegetarian labelling on their products, and largely remain unique in that way.

dynastygal

Cadbury's are a big milk using company. Hence the avoidance.