Great news for my fellow runners – Mizuno running shoes are now vegan! They used to use animal adhesives, which required boiling down animal hides or connective tissues (depending on the glue type) to use in the glue. After watching Vegucated, I realized how much animals suffer and how unnecessary that suffering is. We don’t need to use animal products in glues, there are lots of alternatives. Brooks running shoes have been vegan for years, and trust me, I’ve put a lot of miles on mine and they don’t fall apart.
So I was excited to learn that Mizuno has recently changed their manufacturing process, and no longer uses animal products in their glue!
Not only are their shoes now vegan, I found out because I asked when they offered me a free pair of shoes! As part of a campaign to get word out about their new Wave Rider 18s, they’re “sending free pairs of the new Wave Rider 18 out in the world to watch what happens”.
They’re selecting people on twitter who’ve posted about running, and offering them a free pair of shoes!
I was fully ready to turn mine down to let them know that I would REFUSE A PAIR OF FREE RUNNING SHOES to avoid using a product produced by being unnecessarily cruel to animals… but it turns out I didn’t have to 🙂 After checking multiple sources from Mizuno running, I got the “ok” from both the customer service live chat on the Mizuno website and Mizuno Running’s twitter account.
So next time you need a new pair of running shoes, you can add Mizuno to your list of cruelty free brands to try!
For a great online compilation of which running shoes are vegan friendly, check out the Vegan Athletic Shoes 2014 guide from vegan8. It has the outdated information about Mizuno, but is a great compilation of responses from companies about how they make their shoes. You can always contact a company yourself to double check before you buy.
You don’t have to be a vegan or vegetarian to choose cruelty free whenever possible – so many of the plant-based alternatives to animal products are just as good, better for the environment, and better for animals. Why not make the choice to purchase kind products whenever possible?
Run kind 🙂
Darn, I JUST bought a pair of Asics. When I retire them, I’ll check out the Mizunos.
Brooks are great too! That’s what I run in. Lots of good options out there 🙂 Don’t worry about buying the Asics – I never would have thought of checking until recently! I’m still worried about tackling the “vegan wine / beer” issue which I haven’t addressed yet because it’s a lot of research!
I recently emailed them to check if they are vegan in Asian sub continent and received no answer from them. Wanted to buy a pair but in this case I assume no answer translates to “no we are not”.