Vegans outraged as Bank of England reveals new £5 note contains animal fat

Confirmed: New five pound note contains animal fat
Dominic Lipinski/PA
Saphora Smith30 November 2016

Vegans plan to boycott the new plastic £5 note after it was revealed it contains animal fat.

The Bank of England confirmed on Monday that the note contains traces of tallow, a substance made from animal fat, prompting a social media backlash from British vegans and vegetarians.

Within 18 hours over 6,800 people had signed a petition to get to the Bank of England to remove tallow from bank notes.

Steffi Rox, 33, a vegan businesswoman, who tweeted at the Bank of England to find out it if the rumours were true, told The Standard: “It’s really disappointing. It’s not a nice thought that there is an animal product in my pocket. It grosses me out.

“It seems that Vegans were just not considered which is pretty offensive considering it’s a huge growing community.”

Ms Rox said from now on she would boycott the five pound note saying she refuses to accept that having animal fat in money is okay.

“I run a business called Nice Mums and I’m going to stop accepting five pound notes as payment and start refusing them as change.

“But it’s going to be hard when they start introducing the new ten and twenty pound notes.”

Ms Rox encouraged other vegan businesspeople to follow suit: “It would be amazing if every vegan business owner, or even those that care about animals, would stop using five pound notes.

“Maybe with a bit of people pressure we could get the Bank of England to stop putting tallow in the notes.”

Dan Hanks, a vegan freelance writer, said he was also considering boycotting the note for “the same reason I don’t wear leather – it would make me uncomfortable using something that has (at least partly) come from animal suffering.”

He added:” I've tried to stop contributing to animal suffering in all other areas of my life.”

Tanya Byk, a vegan social media manager, said she would also try and boycott the notes.

She said: "I'm already trying to figure out how to avoid using them"

Speaking of her shock when she found out the notes contained animal fats, Ms Byk said: "I'm horrified to have them sitting in my wallet! We need to be steering well away from producing anything with animal products, let alone the money we have no choice to use.

"What were they thinking? Surely there are more ethical options than this?"

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