PETA is leading a global effort to spare the lives of countless animals used in deadly food and beverage industry experiments and to replace these cruel methods with effective, ethical, and economical animal‑free research tools. This global push has been especially impactful in Taiwan, where PETA’s work has produced landmark wins.

After hearing from PETA and our supporters, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) has eliminated animal‑testing recommendations for over 50% of the regulated health‑claim categories so far—including anti-fatigue, blood-iron, blood pressure, bone health, dental health, digestive health, and joint protection—which food and beverage companies in Taiwan, once approved, can use for marketing their products and ingredients to consumers.

These lifesaving reforms of the health claim regulations mean the TFDA no longer accepts data from tests on animals, who have been drowned, shocked, force‑fed, starved, cut apart, or killed for seven of the 14 health food‑marketing claim categories. PETA also persuaded the TFDA to prioritize internationally recognized, non-animal tests for assessing food safety for health foods and novel foods.

In addition to these regulatory breakthroughs, PETA convinced many of Taiwan’s biggest food and beverage companies to ban all animal testing not required by law. This includes the following:

• Standard Foods Group, the largest health-food company in Taiwan, and licensee of PepsiCo’s Quaker Oats Company
• Uni‑President Enterprises, Asia’s largest food company
• Swire Coca‑Cola Taiwan, one of Taiwan’s leading soft drink manufacturers and bottling partner for The Coca-Cola Company there
• Yakult, known for its probiotic drinks in Taiwan
• Vitalon Foods Group, the third-largest health food company in Taiwan and maker of Super Supau, Taiwan’s best-selling brand of sports drink
• Lian Hwa Foods, a popular snack food company based in Taiwan and a major supplier of ready-to-eat foods at 7-Eleven stores there
• Grape King Bio, a popular energy drink maker and Taiwan’s largest biotech fermentation health food company
• AGV Products, a major Taiwanese company licensed by Nestlé to produce, distribute, and market Nestea products in Taiwan
• Microbio Co., a Taiwanese pharmaceutical and health food producer

Together, these victories spare countless animals from suffering in laboratories and mark Taiwan as a leading example of how industries and regulators can shift toward effective, animal‑free science.

Despite scientific evidence that animal testing is ineffective and fails to lead to medical treatments for humans, food and beverage companies around the world continue to boost sales by turning to animal experiments to prove that ingredients in their products promote human health. Countless chimpanzees, monkeys, dogs, pigs, rabbits, hamsters, mice, and rats have endured cruel tests so that food marketers can attempt to persuade consumers to spend money on their goods.

There’s more work to be done. There are far too many Taiwan-based food and beverage companies that continue to torment and kill animals in an attempt to support their marketing claims, and some government regulations still allow—or even require—this needless cruelty.

The 20 Taiwan-based food and beverage companies that have conducted or funded the most laboratory experiments for health foods have bled, dissected, drowned, electroshocked, force-fed, poisoned, starved, and/or killed more than 8,000 animals over the past two decades. None of these tests were required by law.