What bone char is
Bone char, also called bone black, is granular charcoal made from cattle bones, and refiners use it as a filter. It is not an ingredient. The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG), which has surveyed US sugar refiners since 1997, reports what its refinery contacts told it about the material: the bones are burned at very high heat until only a hard, porous granule is left, and cane sugar liquor is run through beds of it so that colour and impurities stick to the granules.
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The bones are sun-dried and incinerated for 12 hours at more than 700 degrees Celsius.
The same article calls a bone char filter the most efficient and most economical way to remove colour from cane sugar, which is why it became the industry default. The sugar that comes out the far side has no bone in it. What vegan standards object to is the process, since an animal product was used to make it.
Why vegans avoid it even though it is not in the sugar
The Vegan Society certifies products under a standard that looks at the whole manufacturing chain. When the VRG asked the society in 2023 whether bone-char sugar could carry its trademark, the society answered by quoting that standard and then said what it means for sugar.
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The manufacture and/or development of the product, and its ingredients, must not involve or have involved, the use of any animal product, by-product or derivative.
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Products containing sugar which are registered with our Vegan Trademark will be 100% vegan, and therefore will not use sugar processed with bone char.
The Vegetarian Society in the UK draws the line in the same place for its own mark. It told the VRG that it does not accredit any sugar processed with bone char, so bone-char sugar is off the list for vegetarians under that scheme as well.
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We don’t accredit any sugar products that are processed with bone char.
Which sugars use bone char, and which do not
Only cane sugar can meet bone char. The VRG reported in 2007 that bone char is never used in beet sugar processing, and it added that the phrase 100% Pure Cane Sugar on a US bag most likely meant bone-char refining, while a bag labelled as pure beet sugar was never filtered that way. That survey is nearly twenty years old, so read it as the rule for beet and the historical baseline for cane.
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Bone char filtering is never used in beet sugar processing.
For cane, practice varies by refinery, not only by brand. The VRG spoke with American Sugar Refining (ASR), which makes Domino, C&H and Florida Crystals, in April and May 2021. ASR told it that the group uses three decolorization methods at different plants: cow bone char, ion exchange resin and granular activated carbon made from coal or coconut husk. According to the VRG, the Baltimore refinery stopped using bone char in June 2015, the Yonkers refinery dropped it in the 1980s, the South Bay, Florida refinery never used it, and the Crockett, California and Arabi, Louisiana refineries still do. ASR estimated that 65 percent of its sugar was bone-char free.
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Baltimore’s refinery converted completely away from bone char filtration in June 2015.
Other brands have made statements too. In 2013 the VRG reported that C&H directed it to Florida Crystals, and that Florida Crystals sugar, conventional and organic, had not been processed through cow bone char. C&H itself said most of its non-organic sugar went through what it called natural charcoal, meaning bone char, apart from a Washed Raw Sugar made only at its Hawaii plant. The VRG’s 2007 survey also listed Sugar in the Raw (Cumberland Packing) and Wholesome Sweeteners among brands that had confirmed bone-char-free processing. These are dated company statements. The VRG itself says information changes and mistakes happen, so treat a brand claim as a starting point and ask the company.
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Florida Crystals sugar, both conventional and USDA Organic varieties, has not been processed through cow bone char.
Brown, powdered and raw sugar
The VRG’s 2007 article works through the derived sugars. Brown sugar is refined white sugar with molasses added, and confectioner’s sugar is refined white sugar with cornstarch, so both inherit whatever filter the white sugar met. Invert sugar is filtered through bone char, and fructose may be but usually is not. The raw end of the range is different.
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Molasses, turbinado, demerara, and muscovado sugars are never filtered through bone char.
The same article says evaporated cane juice is bone-char free, and Domino told the VRG in 2019 that its Demerara Washed Raw Sugar and its certified organic sugar are crystallized from pressed cane juice and are not filtered through what the company calls natural charcoal.
How to check a bag
There is no ingredient-list word for it. The VRG’s own advice is to look at the certification, the lot code or the manufacturer instead.
USDA Organic cane sugar cannot have been through bone char. The National List of substances allowed in organic processing, 7 CFR 205.605, lists activated charcoal with a condition that excludes animal sources, and the VRG confirmed in 2023 that cow bone char is not permitted as a processing aid in USDA 100% certified organic cane sugar.
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Activated charcoal (CAS #s 7440-44-0; 64365-11-3)—only from vegetative sources; for use only as a filtering aid.
For ASR sugar, the lot code on the bag identifies the refinery. ASR told the VRG that packages of Domino, Florida Crystals or C&H sugar are bone-char free when the lot number starts with 1, 4 or 6.
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Burchell told The VRG that consumers can tell if a particular package of Domino Sugar, Florida Crystals or C&H Sugar is completely bone char-free if the lot number appearing on the label begins with 1, 4, or 6.
A Vegan Society or Certified Vegan mark on a sugar or on a sweetened product settles the question, per the society’s reply above. Store-brand and restaurant sugar are harder. The VRG reported that supermarkets which buy sugar from a large refiner and relabel it may not say which kind it is, and that manufacturers often store cane and beet sugar in the same bin.
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Common practice at many manufacturers is to store refined sugar from both sources in the same bin, thereby co-mingling the two.
Outside the US
In Europe most sugar is beet. The VRG’s 2023 report quotes the European Commission as saying the EU is the world’s leading beet sugar producer and also runs an important refining industry for imported raw cane. The Vegetarian Society states the position for the UK directly.
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Some sugar refineries use bone char as a decolourant in sugar production, although modern technology has largely replaced it. The largest sugar suppliers in the UK do not use any animal-derived ingredients in the processing of sugars.