The Rainbow Café, located opposite King’s College, has announced that it will not accept the new five pound note, on the grounds that it contains an animal fat.

The café, which only serves vegetarian food, is undertaking the policy after it emerged that the new notes contain tallow, a form of mutton or beef fat. Posters, stating the café cannot accept the new note, have been put up for customers to see. 

In a statement to the BBC, Sharon Meijland, who owns the café, said that she was “mystified” about the currency containing tallow, and that the café’s “business is based around not having anything like [tallow] on the premises”. 

She also said that no one had yet complained about the policy, and that if customers only had the new note, the café would "try to find an alternative and accommodate them in some way".

A petition to the Bank of England on change.org to remove tallow from bank notes has over 125,000 signatures.

The Bank of England has said in a statement that it didn’t know about the tallow when it signed the contract. They went on to say that their supplier is “working intensively with its supply chain and will keep the Bank informed on progress towards potential solutions.”

The new notes were introduced in September this year. They are designed to be harder to counterfeit and last longer than paper notes due their polymer structure.