About WhatsVegan
WhatsVegan is an app for iPhone and Android that tells you whether a product is vegan from a photo of its ingredient list. It has been available since February 2022.
The idea came from a simple problem: barcode apps only know products that are in their database, and most of the products that are hard to judge, like imported snacks, local bakery items or new recipes, aren't in it. Reading the ingredient list itself works for any product with a label.
How we classify ingredients
Every ingredient falls into one of three groups:
- Vegan: made from plants, minerals, microorganisms or by chemical synthesis, with no animal source in normal commercial use.
- Not vegan: comes from animals or is produced by them, like milk, eggs, honey, gelatin, carmine, shellac, beeswax or lanolin.
- Depends on the source: can be made from plants or from animals and the label usually doesn't say which, like E471, glycerin, stearic acid, natural flavourings or vitamin D3.
We follow the definition used by The Vegan Society: no ingredients of animal origin. We don't judge products by animal testing, shared production lines or "may contain" warnings, because those don't appear in the ingredient list. A vegan certification mark covers them.
The classification is based on how each ingredient is produced commercially, using food additive specifications from EFSA and the US FDA, The Vegan Society's guidance and manufacturer information. When the source of an ingredient genuinely varies, we mark it orange instead of guessing.
Where our numbers come from
Some pages mention how often an ingredient appears on labels. Those numbers come from ingredient lists scanned in the app, counted after removing duplicates. We only use the ingredient text. No photos, accounts or personal data are used for this. The method is described in our label analysis.
Found a mistake?
Ingredients and recipes change, and we sometimes get things wrong. If you think an ingredient is classified incorrectly, write to [email protected] with a source, and we'll review it and update the page.
Get the app
WhatsVegan is free to download. Premium costs $3.99 a month or $29.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial on the yearly plan.
