Tesco has revealed that it is introducing vegan labelling across its own label product range, following a similar move by Asda last year. Tesco has created an in-house vegan symbol that will begin to feature on the packaging of relevant goods in the near future with roll-out across its range completed within two years.

In December last year, Asda announced that it would start using the official Vegan Society trademark on its food and drink products.  Prior to this, only Sainsbury’s and the Co-operative routinely labelled vegan products.

Tesco’s move comes in the wake of Animal Aid’s Mark It Vegan campaign, which calls on all major supermarkets to introduce clear labelling on all vegan own label products.

Animal Aid’s Vegan Campaign Manager, Ben Martin, commented: “This is fantastic news and is another sign that big businesses are taking the needs of the UK’s half a million vegans seriously. Tesco has already introduced a range of specialist egg- and dairy-free products in recent years, but this new measure will mean that vegans will be able to easily identify the many Tesco products that are animal-free by accident, rather than design.”

A spokesperson for Tesco added: “We continue to be committed to serving all our shoppers a little better every day and our new Tesco vegan and vegetarian labels will help the growing number of customers looking to buy these products. We want to ensure that all our products that are suitable for vegans are labelled as vegan wherever possible, and the new labels will start to appear on products in the near future.”

Earlier this month, Tesco announced that it had formed a partnership with Spoon Guru, a UK-based firm that has developed innovative smart search technology that can help people find foods and recipes to match their dietary needs.