Lidl "romaines" calm with certified plant-based range

Lidl has become the UK's first major retailer to use The Vegetarian Society UK (TVSUK)'s “Plant-Based” Logo on its product packaging. This follows the rebrand and expansion of Lidl's Vemondo Plant! range of food products, which will now bear the logo below to indicate that they have been certified by TVSUK as being wholly plant-based:

The use of this sign on food packaging provides shoppers with a visible flag, confirming that it contains only plant-based ingredients. How does it guarantee this? TVSUK has sought registration of the logo as a certification trade mark.

A certification mark is defined in Section 50(1) of the Trade Marks Act 1994 as “a mark indicating that the goods and services in connection with which it is used are certified by the proprietor of the mark in respect of origin, material, mode of manufacture of goods or performance of services, quality, accuracy or other characteristics.” The owners of a certification mark do not use the mark themselves, but they grant permission to use the mark where the goods or services possess the characteristics concerned. 

An application to register a certification mark will be accompanied by “Regulations” which set out the characteristics that must be present, and any other requirements that must be met before use of the mark will be authorised. These additional requirements could, for example, include payment of a fee, or impose obligations to re-apply for certification periodically, to ensure that the goods or services still comply with the Regulations. As below, it appears that TVSUK’s Regulations include a requirement for all goods/services bearing the logo to have a “key plant-based characteristic” and include no animal-based ingredients.

Interestingly, TVSUK has actually applied twice to register the trade mark. Their first application in April 2024 sought registration as an “ordinary” trade mark across eleven classes, whilst their later application in December 2024 covered the certification mark across fifteen classes. A key difference between ordinary and certification marks is that, as mentioned above, the owners of a certification mark do not use the mark themselves. As such, the registration of the sign as an ordinary trade mark allows TVSUK to also use their own trade mark in relation to relevant goods and services – for instance, the registration covers cookery classes and training/educational services, which they are likely to offer.

The first application covers a range of goods and services which I would not expect TVSUK to offer themselves. In particular, all of the food and beverage classes are covered, as well as restaurant services. The later application covers a broader list of goods, duplicating the goods of some of those earlier classes, as well as restaurant services. This makes more sense, as they may well certify that a restaurant meets its plant-based criteria.

The re-filing may suggest that there has been a change in planned direction, or perhaps TVSUK had initially planned to license use of the mark and then decided that a certification mark would carry more value. Shoppers may have more faith in a claim that a product is plant-based, if they know that it can only bear the logo if it has been actively certified as being so. This does not mean that the initial application was worthless of course, as TVSUK have protected the mark both for them to use as they desire for certain goods and services, and also (once registered) for third parties to use the mark under their approval and supervision.