Vegan Supplements UK — Plant-Based Vitamins Made Without Compromise

Most supplement brands slap “suitable for vegans” on a label and call it a day. The reality is messier. Hidden animal derivatives turn up in capsule shells, coatings, colourants, and flow agents — ingredients that never make it to the front of the packet but are listed in the small print, if they’re listed at all.

At Nutrivity, our vegan supplements are built from the ground up to be entirely free from animal-derived ingredients. Every capsule, every tablet, every raw material is verified before it enters our UK manufacturing facility. We’ve been doing this since 2017, serving over 300,000 customers with high-strength, clean-label formulations that don’t cut corners.

We’re also one of the few UK supplement brands whose entire vegan range is simultaneously halal-suitable — no alcohol-based extraction, no haram-derived ingredients, no ambiguity. If that matters to you, read our full halal supplements policy.

Hidden Animal Ingredients in Supplements

If you’re choosing vegan supplements, you need to know what to look for — and what most brands don’t tell you.

Gelatine capsules — This is the most common issue. The majority of capsules and soft gels on the UK market use gelatine derived from pork or beef. It’s cheaper than plant alternatives, so brands default to it. Unless a product explicitly states “HPMC” or “vegetable capsule,” assume it contains animal gelatine.

Lanolin-derived Vitamin D3 — Most Vitamin D3 on the market comes from lanolin, a waxy substance extracted from sheep’s wool. It’s technically not vegan. Genuinely vegan D3 is sourced from lichen, which is a plant-based organism. Our Vitamin D3 + K2 uses lichen-sourced D3 — no lanolin, no animal involvement.

Carmine (E120) — A red pigment made from crushed cochineal insects, commonly found in coated tablets and gummy vitamins. It’s in more products than you’d expect. None of our supplements contain carmine or any insect-derived colourants.

Shellac coatings — A resin secreted by lac bugs, used to give tablets a glossy finish and make them easier to swallow. We don’t use shellac on any of our products.

Magnesium stearate — A flow agent used during tablet manufacturing. It can be sourced from either animal fat or vegetable oil. Ours is always vegetable-derived.

Lactose — Used as a filler and bulking agent in many tablets. You’ll find it in supplements from brands that don’t prioritise vegan formulation. We don’t use lactose in any product.

Omega-3 from fish oil — Traditional omega-3 supplements are derived from fish. We offer Cod Liver Oil & Glucosamine for non-vegan customers, but it is clearly labelled and sits outside our vegan range. We don’t disguise what’s in our products.

How We Formulate Our Vegan Supplements

Our approach to vegan formulation goes beyond swapping one capsule type for another. Here’s what we do differently.

HPMC plant-based capsules — Every capsule product in our vegan range uses hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), derived entirely from plant cellulose. HPMC capsules are stable, have no taste or odour, and dissolve efficiently in the stomach. They’re more expensive than gelatine capsules, but they’re the right choice.

Lichen-sourced Vitamin D3 — Rather than using the industry-standard lanolin D3, we source our Vitamin D3 from lichen. This makes our D3 + K2 tablets suitable for vegans without any compromise on potency — 4,000 IU per tablet, which is one of the highest-strength vegan D3 products available in the UK.

No animal-derived flow agents or fillers — Our magnesium stearate is vegetable-sourced. We don’t use lactose, gelatine, or any animal by-products as fillers, binders, or manufacturing aids in our vegan range.

No alcohol-based extraction — Our herbal supplements (Devils Claw, Agnus Castus, Black Cohosh, Damiana Extract, Echinacea) do not use ethanol or any alcohol as an extraction solvent. This isn’t standard practice in the industry — many herbal extracts use alcohol-based processing. We’ve specifically chosen extraction methods that avoid this.

GMP-certified UK manufacturing — All products are manufactured in Britain in GMP-certified facilities. This means strict controls on cross-contamination, batch traceability, and production hygiene. Every batch is tested before release.

Full ingredient transparency — Every product page on nutrivity.co.uk lists complete ingredients. No proprietary blends, no vague descriptions, no hidden components. You can see exactly what you’re taking.

Our Vegan Product Range

Our vegan supplements cover every major health category. Every product below uses plant-based HPMC capsules or compressed vegan tablets — no gelatine, no animal derivatives.

Daily Vitamins Vitamin D3 4000 IU + K2 MK7 (365 vegan tablets, lichen-sourced D3, one year supply)

Heart & Cellular Health CoQ10 300mg Vegan Capsules (naturally fermented ubiquinone — one of the highest-strength CoQ10 products in the UK)

Women’s Health Agnus Castus 2200mg Vegan Capsules, Agnus Castus 1000mg Vegan Tablets, Black Cohosh 6.5mg Vegan Capsules, Black Cohosh 6.5mg Vegan Tablets, Damiana Extract 1000mg Vegan Capsules, D-Mannose 1000mg

Joint Care Devils Claw 2200mg Vegan Capsules (high-strength, alcohol-free extraction)

Immune Support Sea Buckthorn 500mg Veg Capsules, Echinacea 250mg Vegan Tablets

Detox & Digestive Health Cilantro 500mg Veg Capsules, Dandelion Root 1000mg Veg Capsules, Psyllium Husk 500mg

Browse All Vegan Supplements

What About the Products That Aren’t Vegan?

We believe in transparency, not spin. A small number of products in our wider range use soft gel capsules that contain gelatine. These include our Castor Oil, Virgin Olive Oil, Blackcurrant Seed Oil, and Cod Liver Oil & Glucosamine.

These products are clearly labelled and are not included in our vegan category. The gelatine used in these soft gels is sourced from halal-permissible sources — never pork — so they are halal-suitable, but they are not vegan.

We’d rather be upfront about this than pretend every product we make is vegan when it isn’t. You can trust that anything in our vegan range is genuinely free from all animal-derived ingredients.

Vegan and Halal — How They Overlap

Many customers ask whether vegan supplements are automatically halal. In most cases, yes — but not always.

A vegan product avoids all animal-derived ingredients, which typically means it’s also free from haram components like pork gelatine. However, some vegan supplements use alcohol-based extraction for herbal ingredients, which could be a concern for observant Muslims.

At Nutrivity, every vegan product in our range is also halal-suitable. We avoid alcohol-based processing across our entire product line, so there’s no grey area. If it’s in our vegan range, it meets both standards.

For a detailed breakdown of our halal approach, visit our halal supplements guide.

common questions about Vegan Supplements
Frequently Asked Questions