Marketers are increasingly promoting functional mushrooms in a medley of forms - from teas and tablets to powders and freeze-dried packets. Functional mushroom ads often make claims that go beyond serving up a tasty dinner. If your knowledge of the advertising rules has ’mushroom’ for improvement, read on for our expert advice to help make you an ad compliance ‘champignon’.
Don’t spore-get to check if you need novel food authorisation
Humans have been eating mushrooms for thousands of years. Not every mushroom has a deep history of being cooked up for dinner though. Novel foods are foods or ingredients (or forms or preparations of them) that were not used for human consumption to a significant degree within the United Kingdom (UK) or the European Union (EU) before 15 May 1997.
Previous ASA rulings, such as this one, have indicated that Turkey Tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor) and certain species of Cordyceps such as Cordyceps militaris, are likely to be considered by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) as unauthorised novel foods that do not have the relevant authorisation for marketing - meaning they and products containing them, should not be sold in the UK. Failing to get authorisation to market a novel food can leave marketers with a whole punnet of problems. If you are marketing a product with a new type of mushroom, be sure to check you have the necessary authorisation to do so.
There’s isn’t mushroom for leeway when you make medical claims
Let’s not make a meal out of this. Claims that state or imply a food prevents, treats or cures human disease should be treated like poisonous mushrooms and avoided. Food or food supplement ads that make such claims are almost certainly going to be a problem. Such medicinal claims can only be made for a medicinal products which are licensed by the MHRA. Read our AdviceOnline library entry on this to button up a common mistake we see marketers make.
Don’t leave any shroom for doubt about your health and nutrition claims
Let’s pick out another important thing to consider when marketers promote functional mushrooms. Nutrition & health claims must be authorised on the GB NHC Register. We’ve seen claims like this for all sorts of marvellous mushrooms like lion’s mane, tremella, reishi, chaga, shiitake, maitake and others.
Marketers are likely to cook up a bitter taste in their mouth if they make a health or nutrition claim for a functional mushroom that isn’t authorised in the register. At the time of writing, there are no authorised claims for mushrooms themselves so marketers should only promote authorised claims in relation to the substances within the mushrooms themselves. Holding evidence to support that the conditions of use for any claims are met, is essential too. Making a claim without holding evidence to substantiate it will likely leave marketers in hot water.
If your product is ex-tremella-ly good for you, be sure to say why
We tell our kids to eat their vegetables because “they’re good for you” all the time. In functional mushroom ads though, a general health claim must be accompanied by a relevant, specific and authorised health claim. Even using the word “functional” without clarifying a relevant health claim is likely to be a problem. So, when making a general health claim, it’s im-porcini-ant to follow that claim up with an authorised and relevant specific health claim.
Don’t make a big maitake with your creative executions
Every advertiser has a responsibility to ensure their ads don’t cause serious or widespread offence – and we know how tempting it is to play on the word ‘Shiitake’. But take into account who might be able to see your ad and whether it’s age-appropriate or likely to offend. Great ads are exercises in creativity but if you go too far, your ad might not be the feast for the eyes you thought it would be.
If you need further, bespoke, advice on your non-broadcast ads, our Copy Advice team can forage out any potential issues with your functional mushroom ads and help prevent them from having to be thrown onto the compost heap.
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