The veggie "issue" is isinglass finings with most beers, commonly in use over here...
Guinness had a UK brewery at a place called Park Royal in London but closed it some years back - I worked within it's walls on several occasions and had "inside knowledge" that UK production was "ok" and I was one of those "marmite" types that was a "like" - that's what my squirrel's drinking...
... but that was closed and a question was asked and they declined to answer - they do not care - does not affect their business model...
An example of their stubborness...
I worked for seven years for a company supplying commercial glasswashing equipment to a UK based op called J D Wetherspoon and they have a hard-sell business model - they go to small or large suppliers and say to them, "We'll buy so many x at y" - the choice is simple - sell or lose the business - this hacked off the
cartel's standard suppliers as they kept prices varied for clubs and bars and often pump-up prices if you do well, with lock-in spirit supplies too...
Now then, Guinness said no...
JDW said fine, then we'll drop your product, offer Murphy's to our incentive-sales based managers as a much cheaper line, and you lose all our business...
There response was indifferent, but over the next year they watched JDW open a new bar at a rate of three a week - these were not small bars - some of their sites turnover in excess of £500k a week - single sites - they don't have the largest bar in the UK, they have the
largest bars in the UK, converting old cinemas, banks, post-offices, shops, into bars - not the worlds biggest but they are still monsters by UK standards - they use the "pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap" model and undercut even their biggest rivals - presently they have about 800 sites...
Guinness caved in and you can still buy a pint of Guinness in a JDW site cheaper than pretty much any other bar in the UK, and not just a couple of pence cheaper - a lot of drinks are 15-20% cheaper than their biggest rivals... go figure...
So, the answer is, they don't care about the veggie market - too small to make a difference...
Mars group did something the other way a few years back - being veggie stateside is a nightmare and you need to contact pretty much every manufacturer to verify what goes into the product (if you don't ask, you don't know), but let's concentrate on the Eurotrash...
For all their products you had to obtain a list and then check the packaging for a GB on the product code under the fold and if it was one of those it was ok, but so much had GR (Greece) or PL (Poland), etc...
They announced that they would no longer be making products specifically for the UK veggie market as it was not a significant part of their business - big mistake...
Their website crashed that day and stayed down for weeks - they could not do business in Britain - turns out the estimated 1,000,000+ veggies in the UK that also ate chocky bars targeted their inbox...
The national papers had adds within a week that they had made a significant business error, and in fact were going to clearly advertise "Suitable For Vegetarians" on any product that was, and introduce more than their were - it would take about 2 months to clear the shelves, but customers should soon be able to buy with certainty...
Now here is a simple reality for all of us - unless it contains one ingredient or you make it yourself most people have no idea what they are eating... in the UK food addatives commonly used in baking are "emulsifiers", or E468 thru E483 - commonly stateside called diglycerides of fatty acids or some such - these are commonly animal derived, often the lining of a cow's stomach - bread from a bakers contains none (usually) but the stuff on the shelf lasts longer because of this stuff, amongst other muck...
Cheese contains a material called rennet, again mostly from cow's stomachs, to cause it to go hard but does not have to appear on the labeling...
Mints - Lifesavers or Polos may contain gelatine... now how is that made...? You have the left-over material from the bones once it has gone through "mechanically recovered meat" processes (for cheap burgers) what do they do with the remainder...? Well, they boil it up and skim off the liquid from the surface and it is a clear liquid known as gelatine... yep, the (pretty much) last thing they can squeeze out of the bones... this then goes into all those soft sweets you feed your kids...
Now, I know there is a "hunting" culture in the US but here there is not - the average person (anywhere in the world) has never seen a sheep or cow getting slotted (I was four when I first went into the "production" area of a slaughterhouse so I know exactly what happens) - you can have images of murder and war enter your house on a daily basis, body parts scattered across a screen... that is called "news"...
Try showing any footage from a slaughterhouse at anytime and it will be pulled from the air before broadcast...
Styrofoam packaging covered in "skinwrap" in spotlessly, almost clinically clean aisles, in supermarkets are all you see, and heaven forbid the site of a carcass in case it distresses the customers...
Europe is going through a major issue with "labeling" due to horsemeat being sold as cow - best incentive I've seen for going veggie yet...
Yes I eat eggs and cheese and the last living thing I knowingly ate I caught and killed it myself...
How may here have slotted and ate the same...?
