Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A post on Huel’s own Instagram account, seen on 3 April 2024, featured a video of Julian Hearn, company founder, speaking about their Daily Greens product. He stated, “You’ve been told your whole life to eat greens and a lot of people can’t get that amount of greens into their diet […] we’ve taken a very broad range of greens, so you get a product which is equally good, or in my eyes better, but you get it substantially cheaper.”
The accompanying caption stated “Superfoods to supercharge your health. Huel Daily Greens is packed with […] gut-friendly probiotics. All the nutrients your body needs to thrive; Reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins & minerals like iron; Excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether:
1. the comparison between “greens” and the advertised supplement was a comparative nutrition claim that complied with the Code; and
2. the claim that the product was “substantially cheaper” than an equivalent portion of greens was misleading and could be substantiated.The ASA challenged whether:
3. the general health claims and specific health claims in the ad complied with the Code.
Response
1. & 2. Huel Ltd explained the ad had been shortened due to an editing error. In the original full version of the ad, the comparison was made with the market-leading daily greens product; however, an error in editing left the impression that the comparison was with fresh green vegetables. Huel provided several tables which they believed substantiated that their Daily Greens product was “substantially cheaper” than the competitor product on a per serving basis, and that it was “equally good or better” due to the quantity of nutrients it contained. Regardless of the substantiation, Huel recognised the error fell short of their standards and confirmed they were taking steps to ensure it was not repeated.
3. Huel believed two general health claims, “Superfoods to supercharge your health” and “All the nutrients your body needs to thrive”, were accompanied by the specific health claims “Reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins and minerals like iron” and “Excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin”. They said the specific health claims referred to nutrients that were important for the overall health of the body and were therefore adequate to support the general health claims.Regarding the claim “gut-friendly probiotics”, Huel accepted that was a general health claim and confirmed it would not be used in current or future ads unless accompanied by a relevant authorised specific health claim.
Huel said the specific health claim “reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins and minerals like iron” highlighted iron as a nutrient that contributed to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue. They said it additionally communicated that the product contained 26 other essential vitamins and minerals. However, the ad only made a specific claim in relation to iron.
Huel said the advertising claim “excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin” was based on an authorised health claim. They had amended its wording to aid consumer understanding, but believed the authorised claim had not been exaggerated. They had replaced “contributes to” with “support”, and “normal skin” with “smooth, healthy skin”, which did not imply any improvement to the normal state of skin. They had taken steps to amend their specific health claims in a compliant manner since previous engagement with the ASA .
Assessment
1. Upheld
The CAP Code required that only nutrition claims authorised on the Great Britain Nutrition and Health Claims register (the GB NHC Register) were permitted in marketing communications. A nutrition claim was defined as any claim which stated, suggested or implied that a food or drink had particular beneficial nutritional properties due to the number of calories, nutrients or other substances it contained, did not contain, or contained in reduced or increased proportions. Comparative nutrition claims must meet the conditions of use associated with the permitted claim and must compare the difference in the claimed nutrient to a range of foods of the same category.
The ad made numerous references to “greens”; the ASA considered that the statements “you’ve been told your whole life to eat greens” and “a lot of people can’t get that amount of greens into their diet” would be understood by consumers as a reference to the colloquial phrase “eat your greens”, which was widely used as an imperative phrase or a reminder to consume an accepted amount of vegetables. We understood the phrase was sometimes used to describe green vegetables in particular. When describing the product in the ad, the founder stated, “we’ve taken a very broad range of greens” and then stated, “so you get a product which is equally good or […] better”. Within that context, we considered the claim “equally good or […] better”, would be understood as an implied comparative nutrition claim that the Huel Daily Greens had just as much or more overall nutritional content as an equivalent portion of green vegetables.
However, there were no permitted comparative nutrition claims which related broadly to the overall nutritional content of a food. Permitted comparative nutrition claims related to specific nutritional properties of foods, such as their vitamin, mineral or fibre content. The advertising claim was therefore not a permitted comparative nutrition claim. In addition, we considered that a supplement drink and green vegetables did not fall into the same food category. We concluded that the comparative nutrition claim breached the Code.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 15.1, 15.1.1, and 15.3 (Food, food supplements and associated health or nutrition claims).
2. Upheld
As mentioned above, we considered that the references to “greens” would be interpreted by consumers as references to fresh green vegetables. We considered that the phrase “we’ve taken a very broad range of greens […] but you get it substantially cheaper” would be understood as a comparison between Huel’s Daily Greens food supplement product and fresh green vegetables, and that the ad, therefore, claimed the advertiser’s product was cheaper than consuming a daily intake of fresh green vegetables.
We acknowledged that the ad had been shortened from a longer video, and that the longer version had compared the advertiser’s product with a different greens supplement from a competing brand. However, the ad did not refer to a competing product, and we did not consider that the shorter version of the video, the ad subject to investigation, made that comparison. Instead, we considered that it implied to consumers that the Daily Greens product was cheaper than a portion of “greens”, rather than a similar competitor product.
We assessed the substantiation provided to us. The data in the tables compared the number of servings per product, the price per serving, and the quantity of 12 different nutrients in both the Daily Greens and the competing product. However, because the evidence only compared the Daily Greens product with the competing product, we considered that it was not relevant to the claim in the ad as it would be understood by consumers.
Because we had not seen evidence that the Daily Greens product was cheaper than a portion of greens, we concluded that, the claim that the product was “substantially cheaper” than an equivalent portion of greens was misleading and could not be substantiated.
On that point, the ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation).
3. Upheld
The CAP Code required that only health claims authorised on the GB NHC Register were permitted in marketing communications for food or food supplements. The CAP Code defined health claims as those that stated, suggested or implied a relationship between a food or ingredient, and health. Marketers could exercise some flexibility in rewording authorised claims, provided that the reworded claim was likely to have the same meaning for consumers as the authorised health claim, and the aim of the rewording was to aid consumer understanding, taking into account factors such as linguistic or cultural variations and the target population. Health claims must be presented clearly and without exaggeration.
The relevant authorised specific health claim for iron was “Iron contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue”. We considered that the omission of the phrase “contributes to” altered the meaning of the claim such that the relationship between the iron in the product and the consumer’s health was overstated. Moreover, we considered the claim attributed the health benefit to iron and 25 other vitamins and minerals, but the Code required those vitamins and minerals to be named. In any case, we understood that the claim “contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue” was authorised in relation to only nine vitamins and minerals. We therefore considered that the claim “Reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins & minerals like iron” did not have the same meaning as any authorised health claim and therefore breached the Code.
The relevant authorised specific health claim for biotin was “Biotin contributes to the maintenance of normal skin”. We accepted that the advertiser had replaced the phrase “contributes to” with “support”, and we agreed that this retained the meaning of the authorised claim. However, we considered that by rewording the phrasing “maintenance of normal skin” with “smooth, healthy skin” did not convey the same meaning as the relevant authorised claim. We additionally noted the advertising claim “Excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin” attributed the health benefit to collagen as well as biotin, but there were no authorised specific health claims for collagen. We considered that the advertising claim did not have the same meaning as any authorised health claim and therefore breached the Code.
The CAP Code also stated that general health claims could be made in relation to foods only if they were accompanied by a relevant specific, authorised health claim. General health claims were defined as those referring to a general benefit of a nutrient or food for overall good health or health related well-being.
We considered the claims “Superfoods to supercharge your health”, “gut-friendly probiotics” and “All the nutrients your body needs to thrive” were general health claims because they referred to the general beneficial effects of the food supplement on health, or, in the case of “gut-friendly probiotics”, referred to a broad beneficial effect on the gastrointestinal system. We therefore considered that those claims were general health claims for the purposes of the Code that needed to be accompanied by specific authorised health claims.
The advertiser had argued that they had accompanied those claims with the claims “Reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins & minerals like iron” and “Excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin”. However, as referenced above, we considered those claims did not have the same meaning as any authorised health claims on the GB Register. The general health claims therefore were also in breach of the Code.
Because the specific health claims in the ad did not meet the associated conditions of use, and the general health claims were not accompanied by specific authorised health claims, we concluded that those claims were in breach of the Code.
On that point, the claims breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 15.1, 15.1.1, 15.2 (Food, food supplements and associated health or nutrition claims) and 15.7 (Food supplements and other vitamins and minerals).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Huel Ltd to ensure that future marketing communications did not make non-permitted comparative nutrition claims, and where using permitted claims, only compared foods in the same category. We told them to ensure that they did not make comparative pricing claims, in the absence of adequate substantiation. We also told Huel to ensure that future marketing communications did not contain general health claims without accompanying them with specific authorised health claims that, if reworded, the specific health claims in their ads conveyed the same meaning as the authorised claim.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
15.1 15.1.1 15.3 3.1 3.7 15.2 15.7
