According to the Food Standards Agency there is no legal definition of vegan or vegetarian in the UK, meaning that some stringent guidelines needed to be put in place which standardises labelling and allows companies to produce products which are honest, allowing people to make informed choices. The below points are protected by law and therefore promoting a product as vegetarian or vegan when it is not, is a breach of various legislative Acts.
For the purpose of labelling, a vegetarian product is one which does not contain anything from an animal which has died, been slaughtered or will die as a result of being eaten (it doesn’t, therefore, include things like live bacteria yoghurt).
Vegan products, however, contain no animal products or animal derived products whatsoever, including milk, honey, bee pollen, eggs or waxes used in manufacture.
That is not to say, however, that companies are bound to disclose when an intuitively vegan-friendly product in fact contains animal products. Some examples are:
If a food doesn’t explicitly say it is vegan friendly and you are suspicious, most manufacturers will explain this via a hotline that you can usually find on their website or packaging.