Ethical Vitamins and Supplements

Choosing natural and vegan supplements

Fuelled by influencers and social media algorithms, the wellness industry is booming. Over 50% of Brits take dietary supplements on a regular basis, up from 40% in 2019, according to YouGov. The past seven years have clearly had an effect on our perception of health.

This guide examines the companies behind a range of vitamins and supplements, from the pharma giants to independent “natural health” specialists.

We look at what goes into their products and whether ingredients are being sourced sustainably, as well as the huge size of some of these companies and the problems that tend to go along with that.

Size of the supplement market

The vitamins and supplements market is in rude health in the UK, and this Ethical Consumer guide includes a broad cross section of brands in the industry, including the good, the bad, and the somewhat ethically deficient. 

Big Pharma is heavily involved in the supplement industry, as can be seen when we look at company turnover. 

The table below gives you an indication of just how large the difference is between the turnover of the smallest company and largest.

Multinational pharmaceutical giants dominate supplement market

Multinational Big Pharma companies are the most visible in the market for vitamins and supplements, and own many popular household name brands:

• VÖOST and Seven Seas: Procter & Gamble
• Nature’s Bounty and Solgar: Nestlé
• Boots Vitamins and Minerals: owned by multinational pharmaceutical and retail investor Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, which was itself swallowed by private equity giant Sycamore Partners in 2025
• Berocca and Sanatogen: Bayer AG. 

German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Bayer is also known as the company which bought US mega agrochemical company Monsanto, in 2018. Monsanto was famous for its chemical glyphosate herbicide Roundup. Bayer has spent the last decade fighting more than 100,000 lawsuits filed by people who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma they blamed on exposure to the glyphosate weedkillers, and the company has paid out billions of dollars in jury awards and settlements.

Bayer also makes so-called “bee-killing” neonicotinoid pesticides. Three main neonicotinoid pesticides have been banned for outdoor use across the UK and the European Union since 2018 due to their toxicity to bees: clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam.

Nestlé and Procter & Gamble are also both subject to boycott calls.

Nestlé has been the subject of a long-running boycott call for its baby milk marketing, and has faced repeated and sustained criticism regarding deforestation and its use of palm oil. It is apparently offloading some vitamin and supplement brands including Nature’s Bounty, but not Solgar. Should brand ownership change from Nestlé, the brands sold may improve their scores.

Niche and specialised supplement companies on the rise

There are some small and medium-sized specialist supplement companies in the market. 

Research organisation Mintel reported that the combined market share of the top five brands has reduced by 4% over the last two years to 40% and that the “star performers” are smaller companies exploring new wellness areas and product formats. 

In an industry estimated to be worth around £600m a year in the UK alone, this suggests significant growth for niche products and innovators.

Reader recommendations included in the guide

Thanks to Ethical Consumer readers for suggesting some companies to cover. This guide features brands which we did not rate when we previously visited the subject in 2023. These are Cytoplan, Myvitamins, Neal's Yard Remedies, Nutrition Geeks, and Vegetology. 

This guide also features Teva Pharmaceuticals – which while making some vitamins, mainly supplies medicines in bulk to the NHS. It was found liable in the crisis of addictive prescription opioids in the US.

What makes a vitamin company ethical?

The most ethical vitamin companies scored highly in the Ethical Consumer ratings for climate, workers' rights, animal products, palm oil, tax policies, company ethos and Israel-Palestine. 

Many of the companies are keen to spotlight their ethical credentials. They tend to do so by emphasising either how natural their ingredients are or how their products are packaged responsibly.

However, some companies seemed less keen to discuss their climate impact or what they are doing to uphold workers’ rights in their supply chains.

Only a handful of companies gained points for using mostly vegan or organically grown ingredients, or saying anything about the people making the products.

As a result, there are only a few vitamin companies excelling across the range of ethical issues Ethical Consumer used for the research.

Do supplements contain animal products?

Supplements like vitamins and minerals don't need to contain animal products. But many of them do.

Vitamins and supplements occupy a middle ground between food and medicine, and it sometimes feels like you have to possess a degree in chemistry to understand what’s in them.

Which supplement brands are vegan?

If you’re looking for vegan supplements, we recommend you go to a 100% vegan brand. These are:

• Ethical Nutrition
• Neal's Yard Remedies
• Vegan Society
• Vegetology

Some of the other brands are fully vegan, but may be owned by a non vegan company e.g. Veganicity.

And some brands may make some vegan products but include animal ingredients in their other products.

Animal ingredients in supplements 

There can be many animal ingredients used in vitamins, minerals and supplements. We focus on some of the most common ones.

Gelatine

Gelatine (or gelatin) is a common ingredient of the squidgy outer coatings in vitamin capsules. It is used as a gelling agent and is derived from the rendered remains of slaughtered livestock. Pescatarians beware – bovine gelatine was found in fish oil capsules, although it is possible to source fish gelatine if you really wanted to.

Use of geletine makes the supplements neither vegetarian or vegan.

Fish or marine oil

Fish or marine oil is found in most omega 3 supplements. 

Omega 3 is a fat found in fish although it is also in plant-based foods such as flaxseeds, chia seeds, and walnuts.

Traditionally, it was administered to children in the form of cod liver oil, usually to their revulsion and disgust. Many retailers sell fish or marine oils, either in liquid form or as capsules. A few brands in our guide sold omega 3 products that contained a small aquarium of marine ingredients – anchovy, herring, mackerel, and sardine.

Viridian used rainbow trout sourced from Scandinavia, while Cytoplan went farther afield, selling Krill Oil made from Antarctic krill, which the company stated was “sustainably sourced from Antarctic waters”.

Antarctic krill are the foundation of the Southern Ocean food web, a vital carbon sink, and the main source of food for whales. Sea Shepherd is campaigning for retailers to stop selling krill-based products and direct customers to alternatives.

Collagen

Collagen is a popular supplement and is said to improve skin, hair, and joints.

Collagen comes from animal connective tissue (gelatine is a form of collagen). Holland & Barrett and VÖOST sold products that contained “marine collagen”, or fish. 

While not containing actual collagen, “vegan collagen” helps your body to produce its own and contains ingredients such as vitamin C (crucial for collagen production), minerals and amino acids. Without wishing to sound too cynical, other sources of vitamin C include fresh fruit and vegetables.

Crustacean shells

Glucosamine sulphate is a supplement sold to improve the function of joints. It is usually derived from the hydrolysed shells of crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp.

Lanolin

Vegetarians and vegans should also watch out for cholecalciferol, or vitamin D3, which can be extracted from lanolin from sheep’s wool. 

Vegan versions of vitamin D are available. 

How can you avoid animal ingredients in supplements?

If you’re buying supplements online, the good news is that many retailers publish their ingredients (although it sometimes takes a little searching to find them).

If you buy supplements from a supermarket or pharmacy, or you like to support your local health food store, remember to take your reading glasses for the small print. The label should list all the ingredients and most brands will say if it is vegetarian or vegan.

Is palm oil sustainably sourced?

Palm oil and its derivatives are common ingredients in many supplements. Palm derivatives like magnesium stearate are used to coat capsules, glycerin is used as a solvent, and the oil itself is used to extend product shelf life. Vitamin E is commonly derived from palm oil, whilst Vitamin A Palmitate is often used as a source of – no surprise – Vitamin A.

Given the prevalence of palm oil in the industry, and its associations with deforestation, you may have thought that vitamin companies would have policies on the sourcing and use of this problematic ingredient.

However, we found a distinct absence of policy, with most companies failing to acknowledge their use of palm oil at all.

Which brands don't use palm oil?

The smaller companies Ethical Nutrition, The Vegan Society, Vegetology, and Viridian are the only ones with brands that are totally free of palm and its derivatives, with Viridian actually certified as such. 

Use of certified palm oil

Some companies used certified 'sustainable' palm oil, with schemes by the RSPO and COSMOS.

Health Plus claims that it only sources palm oil derivatives from RSPO members.

Neal’s Yard bodycare products were mostly COSMOS certified so any palm it used should be certified, but its vitamin products didn’t appear to contain any palm ingredients.

Of the three larger companies that scored better than the rest (Boots, Holland & Barrett, and Orkla (Healthspan)), Orkla scored highest for its more stringent palm supply chains – its palm oil report states that 95%+ of its palm oil is certified sustainable and the majority of it is Identity Preserved or Segregated.

All of Boots’ palm oil is RSPO certified but only 3% was Identity Preserved or Segregated. For Holland & Barrett, 33% was from Segregated sources.

Organic vitamins and supplements

Most companies in this guide sell some organic vitamin products, but none appear to only sell organic products.

This is partly due to the fact that the majority of vitamins are synthetic and are created in a lab. Minerals also can’t be certified organic because they are inorganic and not a product of agriculture.

Nevertheless, some companies put more emphasis on using organic ingredients than others.

• Cytoplan has an organic range.
• Ethical Nutrition says it uses organic ingredients “where available”
• NaturesPlus may be owned by a company called Natural Organics, but just one of its 12 brands is marketed on its website as organic.
• Neal’s Yard is known for its organic skincare products, but its vitamins don’t appear to contain any organic ingredients.
• Vegetology says: “Where we do use ingredients from soil, they are organic.” We only found one organic ingredient in its products which was baobab.
• Viridian states that 40% of its supplements are Soil Association-certified organic. 
• A.Vogel states the majority of its herbs are grown organically by itself in Roggwil where it is based.

Are vitamins and supplements natural or synthetic?

The ubiquity of the words “clean”, “nature” and "natural" in supplement branding might seem to imply that these products are all made from fresh herbs, rather than being mass-manufactured in giant factories across the globe. It’s quite the opposite: companies using real food-derived nutrients claim that up to 98% of supplements are made from synthetically produced ingredients.

In the UK, vitamin and dietary supplements fall under food law rather than medicine regulations. This means that they must be safe to consume and accurately labelled. Most tablets contain more than just vitamins or minerals. Because active ingredients can exist in tiny amounts, manufacturers often add fillers and bulking agents to give pills a practical size you can actually swallow. They may also contain artificial additives such as preservatives and sweeteners. Under UK rules, every single one of these non-active ingredients must be an authorised food additive that has passed safety assessments.

These substances – often known by their "E numbers" or chemical names – must appear in the ingredient list on the product label.

However, some companies in this guide such as Viridian and Ethical Nutrition emphasise that their supplements do contain actual plant extracts and no artificial fillers, whilst A.Vogel aims to be as “close to nature as possible”, using “extracts from freshly harvested plants”, and Cytoplan’s Wholefood supplements also use natural plant sources, such as citrus pulp for vitamin C.

Animal testing

The Ethical Consumer research rating for animal testing contained a section that looked for guarantees that none of the ingredients were tested on animals, with the highest marks awarded to companies with a fixed cut-off date, a criterion which would be met with Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny certification.

Best companies for animal policies

Viridian and Neal’s Yard both possess a Leaping Bunny certification. 

Ethical Nutrition published a policy prohibiting the use of ingredients that were tested on animals. It is also approved by the Vegan Society. 

NaturesPlus is on PETA's cruelty-free list.

The Vegan Society, a certification body itself scored a perfect 100 points for not allowing animal testing “by the company or on its behalf at any stage of development.”

Several other brands made general statements against animal testing, rather than solid commitments. 

Worst companies for animal policies

Almost half the brands in our guide failed to gain any points in Ethical Consumer's animal ingredients and animal testing category.

Nestlé published an animal testing policy which does not exclude vitamins and supplements from animal research but the company’s brands in this market seem to follow their own direction. For example, Solgar is listed by PETA as cruelty-free, which encompassed ingredients, finished product, and suppliers. And whilst Nature’s Bounty, another brand of Nestlé's states that none of its products have been tested on animals, Puritan’s Pride made no such statement.

Bayer and Haleon state that they test pharmaceuticals on animals, although both fail to clarify whether this includes the vitamins and supplements market. 

Procter & Gamble permits animal testing for medical or legal purposes.

Sustainable supplement packaging

When you buy vitamins and supplements, do they arrive in the most eco-friendly (and healthy?) packaging available? Many come in plastic packaging, which comes under criticism for breaking down into microplastics, with implications for human health and the environment.

There is concern from the World Health Organisation and other bodies that microplastics can affect human health.

Some suppliers of vitamins and supplements in our guide stipulated they used glass jars, rather than plastic. These included Neal’s Yard, Viridian and A.Vogel.

Ethical Nutrition says it uses plastic-free packaging, that its glass jars contained no plastic seals, and that it had been the first UK brand to demonstrate zero plastic ingredients in its products with the Look for the Zero logo. For all these companies, we would have appreciated definitive statements that they did not use plastics for screw top lids.

Among those that did use plastic, Veganicity and Health Plus stated that their pots were 99% recycled plastic; the brands’ owner having switched from virgin PET.

Larger companies made claims, albeit weaker, about reducing the use of virgin polymer.

Although Centrum’s vitamins and supplements still appeared to use plastic bottles, its owner Haleon stated it was exploring the use of paper-based Pulpex bottles, and that it had a target to cut its use of virgin petroleum-based plastic by a third by 2030.

Meanwhile, Berocca and Sanatogen maker Bayer claimed to be transforming 100% of its Consumer Health packaging to be “recycle-ready or reusable” by 2030.

The Vegan Society says it plans to maintain plastic-free and home-compostable pouches for its VEG 1 supplements when they are once again available.

Healthspan packages its products to fit through a letterbox and makes plentiful use of plastic in blister packs.

If you’re looking to improve your health with vitamins and supplements, maybe consider the possible health implications of plastic packaging, with their resultant effect on the planet.

Do you need supplements?

At Ethical Consumer we generally steer clear of giving advice around health. However, we felt it necessary to outline current medical advice on supplements, given the prevalence in the sector of claims such as this one, found on the Health Plus website: “Be it our hectic lifestyles, over farming of the land, too many pre-prepared foods or just fussy eating, the only way to guarantee your body is getting the nutrients it needs is by supplementation!”

Such statements are not supported by scientific consensus. The NHS guidance on vitamin supplementation is as follows: “Vitamins and minerals are nutrients your body needs in small amounts to work properly and stay healthy. Most people should get all the nutrients they need by having a varied and balanced diet, although some people may need to take extra supplements.” 

The NHS has specific advice for children, and if you're pregnant or trying to get pregnant, and the UK government advises that “During the autumn and winter months everyone in the UK is advised to take a supplement of vitamin D every day”.

The NHS’s Specialist Pharmacy Service states that supplements are “essential for patients requiring targeted nutritional support for some medical conditions.” However, such supplementation is assessed on an individual basis.

Be critical

For many, deciding whether or not to take supplements comes down to a decision on who to believe. These days, when targeted online marketing can lead you to believe that nothing replaces a balanced diet like a £40 bottle of ‘nature’s energy,’ sometimes the last people to put your faith in should be those who have a commercial interest in you purchasing their products. 

Be critical of cleverly (increasingly by AI) created videos and the blogs that often accompany supplement websites.

These are usually marketing tools. If you are unsure of whether to supplement your diet, speak to a medical professional.

Are ethical vitamins expensive?

For a price comparison we went for the vitamin the NHS recommends we all take – vitamin D. It suggests that between September and March everyone should consider taking 10μg daily. This is equivalent to 400 International Units (IU) which is also a frequently used measurement. However, most companies’ tablets contain 1000IU or thereabouts, therefore the prices in the table here reflect the cost of 1000IU.

The more ethical brands do tend to cost more, but you can still choose a reasonably ethical brand that is vegan, such as Veganicity, whose tablets are still good value. 

Centrum, Neal’s Yard, Sanatogen, Seven Seas, VEG1 and A.Vogel, and VÖOST did not seem to sell vitamin D on its own, only in multivitamin form, so have not been included in this table.

Misleading marketing: advertisers, influencers and snake oil sellers

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been clamping down in the last few years on unsubstantiated health claims, and upheld many complaints about misleading advertising by vitamins and supplements companies. 

These include claims about weight loss, hormonal imbalance during menopause, vitamin D uptake, and “natural” ingredients. 

The great majority of claims were made on social media; either on companies’ own social media sites or through paid-for advertising. Some were found to have been made in traditional magazine advertising, while Instagram influencers also fell foul of advertising codes. 

The ASA says it is now using artificial intelligence to monitor social media adverts through its Active Ad Monitoring system – we shall see if this stops the spread of false claims and exaggeration.

Overall company ethos of supplement brands

In this guide, only five companies were considered to provide an environmental alternative and received points under Company Ethos for this. 

• A.Vogel’s herbs are “grown using a strict organic protocol.” 
• The Vegan Society and Vegetology are fully vegan. 
• Neal’s Yard sells overwhelmingly organic products, but its vitamins don't seem to be organic.
• Ethical Nutrition is 100% vegan and palm oil free.

While Cytoplan had none of these hallmarks, it scored highly in our Company Ethos category for being a B Corp and owned by a registered charity, The Nutritional Wellbeing Foundation. 90% of Cytoplan’s products are vegan, and it has an organic range too. However, it sells Antarctic krill oil, an animal product with huge environmental issues. We could also not find any indication that it looks after its supply chain workers. Its Nature’s Own brand was only available through independent health stores in the south of England.

Tax strategy: A bitter pill to swallow?

Much of the supplement industry, dominated by Big Pharma, seems to have a problem with paying its fair share of tax.

Ethical Consumer's research displayed a completely polarised position on tax conduct: companies scored either 0 or 100, with nothing in between. 

The market was divided into two camps – those whose corporate structure included jurisdictions on Ethical Consumer's tax havens list (without an adequate explanation), and all the rest. 

Generally, the risk of using tax avoidance strategies was greater according to company turnover. Almost all the companies with turnovers in the billions scored zero for tax conduct.

Worst scoring brands for tax conduct

Large multinationals such as Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, and Bayer were found to have holding companies or financial service subsidiaries in tax havens. Although Nestlé was not penalised for being headquartered in the tax haven of Switzerland, as it is a Swiss company, its corporate structure included holding companies in other tax havens, like Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.

Boots came under the ownership of private equity firm Sycamore Partners, which had subsidiaries in tax havens Bermuda and Jersey, while Holland & Barrett’s owner LetterOne Holdings had subsidiaries in Bermuda and Gibraltar, and was itself based in Luxembourg.

Supplement brands that don't use tax havens

A.Vogel is also Swiss but with headquarters, horticultural and manufacturing facilities all in Switzerland, and even a museum dedicated to its founder, none of its subsidiaries were seen as a strategy for tax avoidance.

Many small, niche, and emerging supplement companies have uncomplicated corporate structures that did not include subsidiaries in tax havens. 

Our advice is to take the small and simple option. All the companies that scored full marks for tax had a turnover under £40m (except A.Vogel's whose turnover was £107m).

Do vitamin companies support Israel?

Half the companies in this guide have nothing to do with Israel.

Of the rest, A.Vogel, Myvitamins (THG), and Neal’s Yard sell their products in Israel.

Boots, Holland & Barrett and Viridian sourced some of their products from the country.

Bayer, Centrum (Haleon), Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble all had subsidiaries in Israel, contributing to the country’s finances through their taxes.

Teva was named a campaign target by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee. It is targeted because it was said to have "supported Israel’s unfolding genocide since October 2023" and as an Israeli company to have "benefited for decades from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands allowing the company to illegally exploit the captive Palestinian market." 

Workers’ rights in vitamin supply chains

Almost a third of the companies scored zero for workers’ rights and another third scored 40 points or under (out of 100) for this category. 

This is either because we found little or no evidence of the companies addressing workers' rights in their supply chains – as with Cytoplan (and Nature's Own), Nutrition Geeks, Veganicity (and Health Plus), Vitabiotics, and Viridian – or because their policies were counterweighed by external criticism we uncovered. 

Nestlé has extensive and adequate supply chain management policies but has been criticised for alleged anti-union practices and underpayment of workers in poorer countries.

Better policies on workers rights

At the other end of the scale, Neal’s Yard uses several fair trade ingredients, has long-term relationships with suppliers, and like Vegetology, manufactures in-house. 

Ethical Nutrition also values long-term relationships and says it uses “regular communication/site visits and fair payment practices”.

Which vitamin companies have good climate policies?

Only three companies in this guide were considered to solely provide lower-carbon alternatives: 

• Ethical Nutrition
• The Vegan Society
• Vegetology

The are fully vegan and use no palm ingredients.

Other companies generally failed to talk about the climate and how their products and processes contribute to climate change and what they are doing about it.

Some of the large companies, such as Nestlé and Procter & Gamble, did adequately report on their emissions and identified their main climate impacts. But they ended up scoring zero in the climate rating because external criticisms that we found questioned their progress.

Additional research by Richard Stirling

Disclaimer

This guide rates companies on their ethical and environmental records. It is not medical advice and should not be used to inform decisions about treating a health condition, managing symptoms, or replacing prescribed medication. If you have a health concern or are taking prescription medication, please consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your routine.