The Bank of England confirms the new fiver contains animal fat
Not good news for vegans and vegetarians.
There was much excitement when the new fiver was released in September.
The new polymer notes were much more durable that the old paper ones and we found we could them as a straw! A select few notes were worth a lot more than £5 and you could even play a vinyl record with them!
However, you probably didn't suspect that they would contain animal fat.
The Bank of England confirmed yesterday that the new £5 note contains traces of tallow, 'a rendered form of beef or mutton fat'.
This news came to light after Vegan UK, a vegan online community, asked the Bank of England if the notes contained tallow. They responded confirming there are small traces of it in the polymer pellets used in the base substrate of the notes.
The Bank of England has since responded to many concerned vegans and vegetarians on Twitter.
It's safe to say there are a lot of unhappy people, many taking to Twitter to vent their frustration.
A petition has even been set up and reached over 70,000 in 18 hours.
However others have taken a more light-hearted approach to the news.