Bangor’s Voltaire restaurant refusing new £5 notes because of animal fat
A VEGAN restaurant is refusing to accept new £5 notes as they contain animal product.
Rachael Phoenix, the owner of Voltaire in Bangor, has taken the stand after it emerged that the new notes contain tallow, a rendered form of animal fat.
The revelation has caused anger with many vegans and vegetarians, with a petition started to get the Bank of England to make changes to the note.
Rachael said: “After discussions over the weekend we decided that we will not be accepting the £5 at the restaurant.
“We are 100% vegan so we really need to object to the use of tallow in our money too, it’s crazy to think that in this day and age it would be allowed.”
She said she “had to take a stand” and customers had supported the decision.
On their Facebook page, Rachael wrote: “We have decided not to accept the notes here at Voltaire as a stand against using animal products in our everyday necessary products.
“Thank you to all our wonderful customers who have been so supportive in our deci- sion.
“We do hope that this does not cause too much inconvenience.”
The petition demanding that the £5 notes are changed to be suitable for vegetarians has now attracted more than 150,000 signatures.
Bank of England officials have announced that Innovia, the company that supplies it with polymer pellets that go into the notes, is working on “potential solutions” to the problem.