Firstly… what’s a parent company?
It’s very common for brands to be owned by a much larger, often global corporation, called a parent company. You may have heard of some of them: Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Glaxosmithkline.
Most parent companies are not cruelty-free and more often than not, they will own brands that are not cruelty-free.
As an example, Simple are cruelty-free – they don’t test their ingredients or finished products on animals and neither do their suppliers. But they are owned by Unilever, which is not a cruelty-free company. They own brands such as Vaseline (not cruelty-free).
Should you boycott these parent companies and therefore these brands?
There are arguments for and against buying brands that are owned by large companies that are not cruelty-free and ultimately, it’s an individual decision.
There’s arguments for buying them…
Brands are unique entities that operate completely separately from their parent companies. They have their own strict policies relating to animal testing and continue to adhere to them, even if they are brought or owned by a company that isn’t cruelty-free. Quite often, this will be a stipulation prior to their acquisition. In limited instances where this is not the case, and brands have been influenced to adopt animal testing (to sell their products in China for example), they will lose their cruelty-free status.
Many argue that continuing to buy these brands sends a strong message to their parent companies that there is demand for cruelty-free products which will hopefully drive change, especially when these brands are performing well financially.
These large, global parent companies can provide a huge boost for small, cruelty-free brands by providing access to increased production capacity, extensive distribution networks, large research and development budgets and excellent marketing experience. Acquisition by one of these parent companies can lead to significant growth and expansion of a brand, therefore giving greater competition to established brands that do test on animals.
There’s arguments for boycotting them…
The alternative argument is that by buying brands owned by parent companies that are not cruelty- free, we are financially supporting them to carry out animal testing on other products or providing them with the means to buy more companies that do.
One way to look at this is that if you buy household cleaners or even vegetables from a supermarket, you are funding a company that buys and sells products that are tested on animals. But, buying the cruelty-free brands, or buying vegan foods if you are a vegan, drives demand for these products and encourages the supermarket to invest more in these items, and hopefully discourages them from stocking the alternatives.
Some choose to avoid buying products from these brands because they feel that by being sold to one of these parent companies, brands have abandoned their values and ethics. But, as mentioned above, this can in some cases help these brands to grow significantly and therefore become more widely accessible to consumers, raising further awareness their values and ethics.
What do the certifiers say?
Neither Leaping Bunny nor PETA require a brand’s parent company to be cruelty-free for them to be certified as cruelty-free themselves. To maintain their Leaping Bunny status, brands must commit to operating as a stand-alone business and must continue to provide the evidence required to meet their strict standards and requirements.
For more information about certification, you can read our blog here.
It’s a personal decision
Ultimately, the decision is an individual one. For us at Animal-Kind, the important thing is to raise awareness and enable people to make informed choices and decisions. The more information we can share about animal testing, the more this will hopefully shape decisions when shopping.
Cruelty-Free Kitty makes it really easy to search for brands that do not test on animals. It also provides information about whether or not a brand is owned by a cruelty-free parent company and there is even an option to filter your search results based on this.
At Animal-Kind, only three of the brands we sell are owned by parent companies that are not cruelty-free (Simple, Ecover and Bulldog). All except these three, are cruelty-free through and through. All of our products are 100% vegan so they are completely animal friendly. View our full range of products here.
