Vegan is not an Ingredient
Despite what many think, “vegan” is not an ingredient but a personal choice people make for their own reasons whether religious, ethical or dietary.
I’ve lost count on the number of people who have not purchased my sauces because they’re vegan. For example, our Vegan Vodka Sauce needs to have the word “vegan” front and center for one main reason: traditional Vodka Sauce contains heavy cream and cheese. Vegan Vodka does not. Capeesh?
My response to stubborn folks who refuse to comprehend the word “vegan” goes something like this: “Vegan is not an ingredient. You can add whatever meat and/or dairy you like when using my vegan products but “vegan” is not an actual ingredient we use in any of our products. It just means there’s no meat or dairy. Add whatever meat, dairy or fish you like when you get home. GO NUTS!”
That’s the true gist folks. It’s not complicated. All our products are 100% vegan and we plan on keeping it that way for many different reasons (both professional and personal). Frankly, I would never purchase a jar of meat-sauce. I’m more of a purchase the meat or fish fresh and cook it from scratch kinda guy. If the dairy product at the grocery store (or farmers market) is not refrigerated, I ain’t buying it.
People can shop without prejudice much better when they understand that vegan is not an ingredient but something that doesn’t involve any animal products or byproducts (and that’s a long list).
Fortunately, every ingredient we do use in our products can be easily pronounced and was grown in soil by farmers and not inside a glass tube at some random science lab.
All this said, our products contain over 80% local tomatoes (a fruit) and 20% veggies, extra virgin olive oil, etc. No meat! No dairy! What these ingredients we use in our products all have in common is that none of them are byproducts of an animal. Hence, why they’re all vegan. Like organic, the word vegan is a very loaded word with many layers these days due to the many many different reasons and for so many many more misunderstandings from both sides of the coin.