Hunter's 'Vegan Edit' Includes Nearly 300 Certified Vegan Products

Along with the iconic Hunter rainboot, the company has a huge collection of items that use no animal materials or animal by-products during the manufacturing process.

Upon first consideration, anyone who avoids animals products might not worry that their Wellington boots were not vegan. But that's the thing about avoiding animal products – they show up in very surprising places. If plastic bags and bicycle tires may not be vegan, why not rubber boots?

Which is why I love this great initiative by Hunter, the maker of iconic rubber boots. They have created a "vegan edit" in which they've singled out all of their vegan products in a special section, to the delight of rubber-boot wearing vegans everywhere. Vegan items also display a vegan symbol (below) in online descriptions and on product tags to make it clear.

© Hunter

"Increasingly, we are being asked which products within the Hunter collection are vegan," notes the company. "Because of our commitment to using natural rubber, many of our iconic and best-selling rain boots are, in fact, already vegan."

At this point, they have a whopping 278 products certified as 100 percent vegan, meaning they were all made without using any animal materials or animal by-products during the manufacturing process. The vegan edit has been PETA approved. and includes the classic Original Tall boot, as well as best-selling styles like the Original Short, Original Chelsea, Play and Refined boots.

The company has come a long way from being just makers of wellies – they have all kinds of other apparel and accessories, including many things to keep warm; many of which are traditionally made with things like wool and down. So it's nice to see plenty of cozy vegan items in the edit as well.

Meanwhile, if you are wondering about all that rubber that goes into the making of all those rubber boots – we are right there with you. The company says they are committed to respecting "human rights, animal welfare and the environment." Which means, as far as the rubber is concerned, it is all natural and sourced from plantations in China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. In a sustainability statement, the company explains that they "recently signed a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) position statement on the responsible sourcing of natural rubber, it commits to sourcing rubber from deforestation-free, environmentally- conscious and socially responsible natural rubber."

I discovered something else about the company that I didn't know, which is they started a charity initiative in 2012 called Hunter Donated. Since then, they have donated 116,335 fully functional waterproof Wellington boots to their global charity partners around the world.

"Hunter Donated has provided boots in response to natural disasters in Haiti and Puerto Rico as well as to development organisations in Cambodia and to local farmers in East Timor," says the company. "So far, we have reached thousands of people across four continents."

© Hunter boots doing the good work.