List of vegetarian Mars products

MarsCandyKills – Mars test on animals

Update, 22nd May 2007: So it's great to hear that Mars have changed their mind. But some of what they say is quite worrying. Their new FAQ states, in question 2, that "Yes, this announcement means that favourite products - Mars bars, Snickers bars, Galaxy, and Maltesers will once again be suitable for vegetarians." But previous to their announcement that they were stopping everything being vegetarian, it's not true that all their Mars bars and so on were suitable for vegetarians. I still have the letter from them, dated November 2005, in which they carefully instructed me in how to read the best before date of a Mars bar to tell if it was vegetarian or not (it had a "U" in it). I've emailed them to ask them to clarify this, and will let you know if I hear back.

Update, 3rd May 2007: Before the 1st May 2007, some Mars Bars were vegetarian and some weren't, and this page told you how to work out which (it was to do with whether they were made in the UK or not, you had to look at the best before date!).

However, they're all now non-vegetarian. It looks like they've moved all their chocolate production overseas, where they don't use vegetarian whey. It's now nice and simple and I can just boycott Mars…

Masterfoods Consumer Care has contact details if you wish to get in touch with them. Here's the message from Mars UK:

"Due to a change in the ingredients used in our chocolate recipes from 1st May 2007 many of our products now contain whey. This is a by-product of the cheese making process and uses rennet derived from an animal source. Therefore we feel it is for individual vegetarians to judge whether they are comfortable in consuming cheese products that do not bear a vegetarian symbol; we would consider our products to fall into this same category.

This includes Galaxy, Mars, Bounty, Celebrations, Maltesers, Milky Way, Revels, Snickers, Topic and Twix.

Products that are currently in store or that you may have already purchased that carry a Best Before Date of 1st October or before are still suitable for your consumption, however if you have purchased any products with a best before after this date then we will be more than happy to refund the value of the product. Please see attached lists for further information."