Vegan Emoji

Not an official one. Unicode has never approved a dedicated vegan emoji, so the job fell to 🌱 seedling, a small sprout in two leaves that has been in the emoji set since 2010. On its own it means new growth or a fresh start; next to food, in a username or in a restaurant's profile it reads as vegan or plant-based, and it has become the de facto vegan symbol on Instagram, TikTok, dating profiles and delivery apps. 🌿 herb and 🍃 leaf carry the same message a little more softly, and 💚 green heart is the vegan heart: green for plants, and the colour of most vegan labels.

When people want a letter rather than a picture they use Ⓥ, the circled capital V from the Enclosed Alphanumerics block (U+24CB, in Unicode since 1993, long before emoji). It is a text symbol, so it shows in the same plain style on every phone and in places that strip emoji, and it is the closest thing to a vegan symbol text that exists. ⓥ is the small version, 🅥 the filled circle and 🆅 the filled square; 🅅 is a plain squared V. ✌️ victory hand doubles as a V for some vegan accounts, and ✓ ✔️ ✅ do the work of the tick on a menu: “✅ vegan”, “✓ dairy-free”.

Vegan emoji for the plate: vegetables, beans, grains

The greens come first, because they are what people picture: 🥬 leafy green (lettuce, kale, cabbage or bok choy, the design leaves it open), 🥦 broccoli, 🥒 cucumber, 🥗 green salad and 🥑 avocado, the emoji of brunch and avocado toast. Then the colourful row 🍅 🫑 🌶️ 🍆 🌽 🥕, the roots 🥔 🍠 🫜 🧄 🧅 🫚, and 🍄 🍄‍🟫 mushrooms, the meatiest thing on a vegan menu.

Protein in emoji form is 🫘 beans (2021), 🫛 pea pod (2022), 🥜 peanuts and 🌰 chestnut; there is still no tofu, lentil or chickpea emoji, so 🫘 and 🧆 falafel stand in for all of them. Grains and bread are 🌾 🍚 🍙 🍞 🥖 🫓 🍝, and most of the world's street food is vegan or one swap away: 🧆 falafel, 🥙 stuffed flatbread, 🌮 🌯 🫔 Mexican corn and wheat wraps, 🥟 dumplings, 🍛 curry, 🍲 a pot of stew, 🍜 noodles, 🥣 porridge or a smoothie bowl.

The swaps are where emoji get playful. 🥛 next to 🌾 is oat milk, next to 🥥 coconut milk; 🍔 with 🌱 is a plant-based burger; 🧀 🍕 🍦 with a 🌱 or Ⓥ attached mean the vegan versions. 🍓 🍌 🫐 🥭 🍍 and the rest of the fruit are vegan by definition and fill out any smoothie, breakfast or fruit-stand post.

Vegetarian emoji and what is not vegan

Vegetarian emoji are the same set minus the strictness: a vegetarian post keeps 🥚 🍳 🧀 🥛 🧈 and 🍯, a vegan one drops them, and honey is the one that surprises people, because 🐝 bees make it. For meat-free posts the usual move is the crossed-out plate: 🚫🥩, 🚫🍖, ❌🍗, or the before-and-after 🥩➡️🌱. 🍣 sushi and 🍤 fried shrimp belong on the same list; plant-based sushi gets 🍣🌱 or 🥑🍙.

Vegan accounts also post the animals themselves, as the reason rather than the ingredient: 🐄 🐮 🐖 🐷 🐑 🐐 🐔 🐓 🐣 🦆 🦃, the fish and shellfish 🐟 🦐 🦀 🦞 🐙 🦑 🦪, and 🐝 for honey. “Friends, not food” is written exactly like that: 🐄🐖🐔💚. For cruelty-free cosmetics the sign is the bunny, 🐰 or 🐰✅, after the Leaping Bunny certification logo, and 🐾 paw prints stand for animal welfare in general.

The real vegan symbols and their emoji stand-ins

Printed vegan labels are not emoji, but each has an emoji people reach for instead. The Vegan Society's trademark, the oldest, is a sunflower, so 🌻 is the stand-in. The European V-Label is a green V with a leaf in a yellow circle, which is why Ⓥ caught on. India requires a green mark on vegetarian packaged food and a brown one on non-vegetarian food, and since 2022 has a separate vegan logo, a V with a sprout; Indian menus often type 🟢 and 🔴 or simply 🌱 to copy that. ♻️ and the text symbol ♲ ride along in eco bios, as does 🌍 for “eat for the planet”.

The word itself is young: Donald Watson coined vegan in 1944 when he founded the Vegan Society in Britain, and World Vegan Day falls on 1 November, the society's anniversary, with World Vegetarian Day a month earlier on 1 October. Veganuary, the January pledge that started in the UK in 2014, is when 🌱 posts peak.

Vegan emoji on iPhone, Android and in bios

There is no vegan keyboard; type seedling, broccoli or avocado in the emoji search on iPhone or Gboard, or copy from the grid here. The Ⓥ family and the ornaments ❦ ❧ ☙ ✿ ❀ ⚘ are not on phone keyboards at all, which is exactly why people copy them: they make a bio or a menu header look typeset rather than typed. Ⓥ renders as plain black text in a name field where 🌱 would be stripped or turned into a coloured picture.

Related collections: the whole produce aisle is on Fruit & Vegetable Emoji, the planet side on Earth, Eco & Recycling Symbols, every animal on Animal Emoji, and the people who grow the food, 🧑‍🌾 🚜 🧺 🛒 🧑‍🍳, on Farm Emoji and Cooking & Kitchen Emoji.