For those who want to follow a diet without meat, fish, and derivatives, it is not always easy to orient themselves in the choice of products. On the one hand, packaging and advertising play increasingly on the edge of misunderstanding using definitions such as "vegetable," "natural," and the like. On the other hand, going up the supply chain might sometimes discover that what we are buying is not 100% cruelty-free.

An extra guarantee for the consumer is the official brands of associations with years or even decades of veg history behind them.

Veganism has, in fact, a precise date and place of birth: those of the foundation of the Vegan Society (click here ), established in London on 1 November 1944 by Donald Watson. The British activist was also the creator of the term "vegan," a contraction of "vegetarian" to identify a diet even more restrictive than the vegetarian one because it excluded any animal product starting from dairy products, and then also include eggs honey and so on.

The certification bodies
Since then, the Vegan Society has grown in importance and is still, today, worldwide, among the leading authorities in the sector. In addition to promoting green culture, it also has a certification that, since 2013, can be found in Italy. Certification Europe Italia, an independent certification body, issues it in our country.

This type of bodywork in collaboration with institutions at the national and European level and is involved on the one hand with establishing the standards necessary to obtain certifications. On the other hand, it assists producers in adapting to the specifications and controlling their activity...

Similarly, the Italian Vegetarian Association (click here ) has entrusted to another body, CSQA, the Vegan Quality Vegetarian certification and also promotes the V Label brand: symbolized by a sprout and born in Italy, it has also been successful abroad and is now adopted throughout Europe and recognized all over the world.

CCPB also operates with the same criteria as the other bodies, an organization linked to the organic, environmentally friendly, and eco-sustainable production sector, which issues the Certified Vegan brand.

The Vegan and BioVegan brands of Ice, the Institute for ethical and environmental certification, operating in Italy and Europe for fair development and socially sustainable, from organic farming to other bio-ecological sectors (cosmetics, eco-sustainable tourism, green building, etc.).

A landscape not yet regulated
There are also commercial brands that correspond to companies related to the veg world. One of the most widespread is that of the VeganOK network (click here ) present on the net with an e-commerce site and news and community channels. Obviously, this is a different operation: not necessarily to be viewed with suspicion, but in any case, linked to business activity, therefore following business-related logic.

It should be underlined, then, that all the brands and certifications analyzed so far are voluntary : no law regulates veg productions as happens, for example, for DOP and IGP.

Orientation is, therefore, still and ,to a large extent ,a matter of common sense. The first step is to turn to trusted retailers, stores of the large chains in the sector,, andspecialized departments of the large-scale retail trade, increasingly attentive to the veg market.

Then, don't stop at what "screamed" on the packaging between slogans and bucolic images, but learn always to read the labels carefully.