Are Maurten, GU, and Skratch Products Vegan? A Brand-by-Brand Breakdown

Maurten Gel 100, Gel 100 Caf 100, and Drink Mix 160 are manufacturer-confirmed vegan — the brand states they contain no animal-derived ingredients — and they are not filed here as Certified Vegan. GU original Energy Gel is ingredient-list verified flavour by flavour; GU Roctane and GU Energy Chews stay unclear because amino-acid and gelling-agent sourcing is not disclosed. Skratch Sport Hydration, Super High-Carb, and Energy Chews are manufacturer-confirmed vegan; Skratch Recovery contains milk protein, and Honey Stinger is not vegan.

That is the whole comparison. Brand logos do not carry a status. SKUs do.

Certified Vegan is not a brand statement

“Vegan” on a sports-nutrition packet is mostly unregulated. A manufacturer can print it without an audit. Certified Vegan is a registered trademark (Vegan Action, and separately BeVeg) that requires ingredient and sourcing checks. This site never uses that trademark as shorthand for “we read the label.”

The five statuses used here, in descending strength of evidence:

1. Certified Vegan — current third-party mark, with a link to the certifying body.
2. Manufacturer-confirmed vegan — the brand says so on its site or in a direct reply. No independent audit.
3. Ingredient-list verified (by us) — listed ingredients show nothing obviously animal-derived. Processing aids and cross-contamination are often undisclosed.
4. Unclear — ambiguous sourcing (amino acids, gelling agents, flavour lines that have used honey). Flagged instead of guessed.
5. Not vegan — a known animal ingredient: honey, gelatin, dairy, whey.

Maurten sits at level 2. GU Energy Gel sits at level 3, flavour by flavour. GU Roctane and GU chews sit at level 4. Skratch hydration and chews sit at level 2. Skratch Recovery sits at level 5.

None of the three headline brands currently has a Certified Vegan row in this catalog. Garden of Life Sport protein is the rare catalog product that does, and that is a recovery powder, not a gel. Do not promote Maurten, GU, or Skratch to that label because the formula looks “clean.”

Maurten: simple formula, manufacturer language, no trademark

Maurten’s public position is that the hydrogel gels and drink mixes contain no animal-derived ingredients. On that basis, Gel 100, Gel 100 Caf 100, and Drink Mix 160 are manufacturer-confirmed vegan. Last verified August 2026.

The panel is unusually short: glucose, fructose, water, and the alginate/pectin hydrogel system, plus caffeine in the Caf 100 gel. Fewer ingredients means fewer places for honey or gelatin to hide. Simplicity is not certification. It is only a reason the ingredient-list question is easy to answer once the brand has spoken.

Gel 100 supplies 25 g of carbohydrate and about 35 mg of sodium. Drink Mix 160 supplies 40 g and 160 mg of sodium. Caf 100 adds 100 mg of caffeine. Maurten uses glucose plus fructose, which is the physiology behind higher hourly rates (Jeukendrup, 2011; ACSM 2016). That does not make it more vegan. It is still a product you have to gut-train.

Sodium is low relative to Skratch Sport Hydration. If every packet in the belt is Maurten, salt has to come from food, from another mix, or from a practised high-sodium sachet. That is a fuelling design choice, not a vegan problem.

Do not assume unlisted Maurten SKUs. This page covers the three catalog rows. If a new drink mix or bar appears at an expo, it needs its own check. Hydrogel marketing is not a status field.

GU: three lines, two statuses, no brand-level answer

GU is the clearest illustration of why “is this brand vegan?” fails. Three product lines share a logo and sit at two different verification levels.

Original Energy Gel. Common flavours list maltodextrin, fructose, water, and flavouring, with no obvious honey, gelatin, or dairy. GU does not uniformly print a vegan claim across the line. Amino-acid sources and flavour variants differ. Processing aids are not always disclosed. The catalog files the original line as ingredient-list verified, flavour by flavour, at about 22 g of carbohydrate and 60 mg of sodium. Recheck the flavour you buy. A new seasonal packet is not covered by last year’s chocolate-outrage panel.

Caffeinated original gels exist. The catalog’s default Energy Gel row is non-caffeinated. Count milligrams from the packet, not from a blog table.

Roctane Energy Gel. Roctane adds amino acids, including branched-chain amino acids, and typically more sodium (about 125 mg) with about 21 g of carbohydrate. Amino acids can be produced from plant, microbial, or animal routes. GU has not published a vegan sourcing statement for every Roctane SKU. The row is unclear. Unclear means we would not put it in a race belt that is supposed to be plant-based, and we also will not mark it not vegan without an animal ingredient on the panel.

Energy Chews. Chews need a gelling agent. If the source is gelatin, the product is not vegan. If the source is pectin and the rest of the panel is plant-based, it may be fine. GU does not always disclose origin on every chew label, so the catalog files Energy Chews as unclear. That is a different problem from Skratch Energy Chews, which the brand lists as vegan and gelatin-free.

An expo wall of GU packets is not one product. Original gel, Roctane, and chews can sit in the same colour family. Read the line name, then the flavour, then the panel.

Skratch: hydration and chews versus the recovery canister

Skratch Labs states that Sport Hydration, Super High-Carb, and Energy Chews are vegan. Those three rows are manufacturer-confirmed. They are not Certified Vegan.

The recovery mix is the trap. It uses the same brand colours and often sits on the same table as Sport Hydration. A runner who learned “Skratch is fine” and then scoops Recovery after a long run has been failed by brand-level thinking, not by bad luck.

Super High-Carb is a race-fuel tool: 100 g of carbohydrate in one serving, using a cluster-dextrin mix. That is most of an hourly target in a bottle. It is also a large osmotic load if you have not practised that concentration. It does not become vegan-er because it is “real fruit” flavoured. Status and gut training are separate checks.

Energy Chews are the usual answer when someone wants chewable carbohydrate without guessing at gelatin. They are still manufacturer language, not a trademark. Recheck if a new flavour launches.

Head-to-head: carbohydrate, sodium, and status

Use this table to choose a job, then confirm the packet. Numbers are catalog values last verified August 2026.

If you want manufacturer confirmation on a gel, Maurten is the cleaner file. Original GU can stay in the belt only as flavour-checked, weaker evidence. For bottle sodium, Skratch Sport Hydration beats Maurten 160. For chews without a gelatin question, Skratch beats GU.

Do not stack all of them. Two bottles of Drink Mix 160 is 80 g of carbohydrate before the first gel. Count grams on paper. The hour-by-hour fueling article is the clock; this page is only which packets are eligible.

Honey, gelatin, and whey: the three ingredients that decide most of this

Reading a race-nutrition panel gets faster once you know what you are hunting.

Honey. Unambiguous. Honey Stinger’s gels, chews, and waffles use it. Several Muir Energy flavours use it; maple Muir flavours are a different SKU and still need a panel check. Veloforte Doppio contains honey even though other Veloforte flavours are vegan-labelled. Aid stations love honey gels. Carry your own.

Gelatin. Almost exclusively a chew problem. It may appear only as “gelling agent” without origin. Pectin-based chews are the alternative. Skratch lists its chews as vegan. GU chews do not give enough origin information here, so they stay unclear. Clif Bloks are ingredient-list verified on common flavours in the catalog — still not Certified Vegan, and still a flavour-by-flavour recheck.

Dairy protein. Whey or milk protein isolate, almost always in a “Recovery” canister. Skratch Recovery and Tailwind Rebuild are the two expo regulars. They sit beside vegan hydration from the same brands. This is how careful vegan runners consume dairy on race weekend: they trusted the logo.

Amino acids and “natural flavour” are the fourth category. They produce unclear ratings rather than clean answers. That is Roctane. It is also why Clif Shot stays unclear: some historical Shot formulas used honey, and the flavour lineup has changed.

Why “is GU vegan?” has no correct answer

The same question fails for Skratch and for Clif. Each of those manufacturers sells products at more than one verification level. Skratch spans manufacturer-confirmed and not vegan in one livery. GU spans ingredient-list verified and unclear. Clif Bloks are flavour-checked; Clif Shot is unclear.

Spring Energy, Näak, and Veloforte each sell vegan-labelled flavours and separate SKUs with honey or (for Näak) cricket protein. The pattern is the industry, not a Skratch-only quirk.

The practical consequence is a shopping rule: status lives on the SKU. Learn the line name (Energy Gel vs Roctane vs Recovery). Then learn the flavour. Then read the packet dated this year. The methodology page exists so those five labels can be checked rather than trusted as a vibe.

If you need a single sentence for an expo friend: Maurten gels and drink mix, yes, manufacturer-confirmed, not certified. Original GU gel, maybe, if that flavour’s panel is clean. Roctane and GU chews, not for a strict plant-based belt. Skratch hydration and chews, yes on brand language. Skratch Recovery, no. Honey Stinger, no.

Building a race belt from these three brands

A workable plant-based stack that stays inside confirmed or flavour-checked rows:

• Bottle: Skratch Sport Hydration if you want ~380 mg sodium and ~21 g carbohydrate, or Maurten Drink Mix 160 if you want 40 g in the bottle and will get sodium elsewhere. Super High-Carb only if you have trained 100 g in one serving.
• Gels: Maurten Gel 100 on the manufacturer-confirmed side; original GU Energy Gel only for flavours you have rechecked. Leave Roctane out.
• Chews: Skratch Energy Chews. Leave GU chews out unless you later get a disclosed gelling-agent source.
• Caffeine: Maurten Caf 100 is 100 mg. Do not also drink a large coffee and take two caffeinated packets without counting. Details in coffee before a marathon.
• After the race: not Skratch Recovery. Use food or a plant protein with a real status — see dairy-free recovery protein.

Neversecond C30 and Precision Fuel PF 30 are also manufacturer-confirmed vegan if you want cleaner hourly math than mixing three brands; they are in the catalog.

Practise the exact products at long-run intensity. Status only answers whether the packet belongs in a vegan belt. Gut training answers whether it belongs in yours.

Race-morning bottles are a different article: vegan race-morning hydration. Drink-mix jobs beyond these three brands sit in vegan electrolyte drink mixes.