With the pre-Christmas advertising splurge well underway, the Lidl TV spot about its ‘happy turkeys’ put me in mind of an alternative, vegan viewpoint.

Are there, I wonder, any printers in the UK offering a vegan print service? There is actually a company out there called Vegan Print but it seems to be more of a print farmer than a printing business per se and it doesn't list any accreditations.

I’ve checked the Vegan Society’s database of users of its trademark, and couldn’t see any printers on there.

The reason I ask is because the other week I met a German printco – Lokay Druck – that was about to add vegan accreditation to its long list of environmental and sustainability trust marks.

Lokay boss Thomas Fleckenstein said that more and more of the firm’s clients were vegan orientated, and wanted animal-free products.

As Thomas pointed out, if you’re reading in bed it’s an intimate and personal environment, and it’s pretty obvious that a vegan would not be happy with, say, a leather bound book.

But then there’s the matter of perhaps less obvious products involving animal derivatives that could be used in printed items, such as glues.

Providing a specialist service of this ilk reminded me of a blog I wrote a while back about the potential opportunity in offering a halal print service.

Having looked into it, it seems the number of vegans in the UK has rocketed over the past decade, and now exceeds 540,000. And there’s an army of businesses supplying vegan products, from foodstuffs to cosmetics and various other items.

So while the number of nut roasts on Christmas dining tables may be negligible compared to all those turkeys, a vegan offering could be worth considering.