Frequently Asked Questions

Veganism is defined as a lifestyle in which an individual attempts to exclude all forms of animal exploitation. This often involves removing all animal and animal derived foods and ingredients from a diet, including meat, gelatin, milk, eggs and honey.
Furthermore, being vegan involves abstaining from buying materials or products derived from animal sources such as fur, silk, wool and leather. This also includes removing cosmetics, personal care and household products that are tested on animals and made with animal derived ingredients.

Typically, vegetarianism involves not eating meat, poultry or seafood, whilst still consuming dairy and eggs. In this way, vegetarianism is quite different to veganism as it does not include removing certain personal care and household products and simply outlines dietary exclusions.

Flora, Flora ProActiv and Bertolli spreads are suitable for vegetarians, and the new Flora Plant Original and Flora Plant Buttery spreads are suitable for vegans.

Butter is a dairy product made from milk or cream. It consists of 80% milk fat and often comes in a salted and unsalted varieties. However, due to the high amount of milk fat, butter often contains high levels of saturated fats.

Margarine is mainly made up of a blend of water and oils which may include sunflower, canola, olive and palm oils and some small ingredients. Typically, other ingredients are added including salt, colours, flavours, vitamins (A and D) and animal derived ingredients such as milk, buttermilk powder or whey. These dairy ingredients are usually added to achieve a creamy or buttery flavour and to improve the mouthfeel of the margarine.

The main difference between Butter and Margarine is the type of fat they contain; butter uses a milk derived fat, resulting in higher level of saturated fats compared to margarine.
Flora’s Original and Salt Reduced margarine has 65% less saturated fat than Butter and Flora Light margarine has 75% less saturated fat than butter. Hence providing a healthier alternative to butter for those who watch their saturated fat intake.

All Flora and Flora ProActiv margarines contain milk solids or buttermilk for the reasons stated above. However, to ensure that everyone can enjoy a butter alternative, we have created Flora Plant to be Dairy Free.

Traditionally, Margarine is not vegan as it often contains small amount of milk derived ingredients, such as buttermilk powder, skim milk powder or whey powder to achieve a creamy and buttery taste. Another ingredient that prevents some margarines from being vegan is the type of Vitamin D added. Vitamin D3 is commonly not suitable for vegans as it is often derived from an animal source (sheep’s wool).

On 17th February 2020, we replaced Vitamin D from lanolin with plant sourced Vitamin D2 in all Flora and Flora Pro Activ products. All products with the best before date of 17th September and earlier contain Vitamin D from lanolin. All products with the best before date of 17th September or later contain Vitamin D from plant source.

Flora Plant has been made so that everyone can enjoy margarine, including vegans, flexitarians and people with a lactose intolerance. Therefore, we have removed any dairy ingredients, without compromising the creamy and buttery flavours. In addition, the vegan friendly Vitamin D used in Flora Plant is obtained by extracting it from yeast that is grown in cane sugar (molasses).