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Office politics … are vegans being shut out of workplace kitchens? Photograph: Grindi/Getty/iStockphoto
Office politics … are vegans being shut out of workplace kitchens? Photograph: Grindi/Getty/iStockphoto

Colleagues tease you – then steal your plant milk: the problems vegans face at work

This article is more than 4 years old

The Vegan Society is recommending separate fridges and colour-coded cutlery. But what else do vegans struggle with in the office?

The Vegan Society has released guidelines for employers looking to support vegan employees in the workplace. In addition to offering vegan options at work events, it recommends designating vegan-only shelves in communal fridges, and supplying separate, colour-coded cutlery for vegans and non-vegans.

But are things really so bad for vegans in British workplaces? “It was grim,” shudders Laura Burgess, a 24-year-old publishing assistant from London. She recently opened her office fridge to see a half-eaten roast chicken sitting on a shelf near her food.

Burgess does not think non-vegans understand why having to see meat in communal fridges is so distressing. “It upsets me … I don’t like the idea of animals suffering and being killed for food. Having to see that in shared fridges is a visceral reminder of that suffering on a day-to-day basis. As someone who has chosen not to engage with that, I should be able to avoid it.” In an ideal world, Burgess’s office would have a separate fridge for vegans and non-vegans, to prevent any possibility of cross-contamination.

“There’s a lot of teasing from colleagues,” says Leah Crimes, a 34-year-old teacher from north Wales. “A lot of my co-workers are more obsessed with me being a vegan than I am.” At breaks, they will make comments about what she is eating, or how she takes her coffee. “I just roll my eyes,” Crimes says. “I understand it. They think it’s weird.”

Burgess has also experienced the teasing. “They imply that I’m being preachy or that vegans in general are preachy, or make jokes about how vegan food tastes bad,” she says. She would welcome protection for vegans under the law. “Veganism is one of the things I feel the most strongly about,” she says.

Having non-vegans steal her milk alternatives in the office drives 29-year-old stylist Daisy Jordan, from London, crazy. “You go out and buy milk just for you and then people take it, because there’s a huge trend of plant-based milks because of health,” she sighs. “It’s really annoying. You end up spending a lot of money replacing it.”

Vegans can also feel shut out of ordinary office life. For years, Crimes was not able to eat in the cafeteria, because they did not have any vegan options. “There was literally nothing for me to eat,” she says. “It was annoying, but I accepted it.” Thankfully, the situation has improved in the past two years. “It’s great! They have a vegan option now in the canteen.”

Being a vegan at work is doubly annoying when other people contaminate your vegan-only food, by using the same knife on your peanut butter as they use for dairy butter, for example. “If meat or dairy products touched my food, I wouldn’t be able to eat it,” says Crimes. “It would make me feel sick to think there might be animal products on it.” If Crimes saw an open packet of ham in the fridge at work, she would stop using the fridge entirely. But she stops short of insisting on having vegan-only fridge shelves.

“It would be a nice little bonus,” she says. “But I’m not going to start petitioning for my own shelf. I understand that vegans are in the minority at workplaces.”

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