ASA Adjudication on TopSpec Equine Ltd

Ad

A leaflet, for horse feed balancers, stated "TopSpec Comprehensive Feed Balancer. A flexible, nutrient-rich feed designed to balance the rations of most horse [sic] and ponies ... TopSpec Comprehensive Feed Balancer has a unique No-Grain formula with no cereal grains and only low levels of sugar and starch ...". Small print on the reverse of the leaflet, below a comparison of feed balancers, stated "* 'NO-GRAIN FORMULA' This term indicates that this product does not contain any cereal grain e.g. oat grain, wheat grain, maize grain, barley grain".

Issue

GWF Nutrition believed the claims that the product did not contain cereal grain were misleading because they understood the product contained wheatfeed, a by-product of milling wheat.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

TopSpec Equine Ltd (TopSpec) said the majority of horse feeds contained either whole cereal grains or cereal grain by-products.  They explained that products that contained whole cereal grains in the formula would contain high levels of starch, which could have an adverse effect on horses, while those containing by-products would have low levels of starch.  They said their product did not contain any whole cereal grains, as defined by the Feeding Stuffs Regulations 2005, but wheatfeed, a generic term that covered residual entities that were left after the starchy endosperm, which constituted 85% of a piece of grain, had been extracted for flour production.  They said, although wheatfeed depended on the initial grain, the process of extraction and the purification after production meant that there were no whole cereal grains in wheatfeed, which was also a good source of high quality fibre and one of the most frequently used ingredients in equine food.  

TopSpec said they were careful not to claim "no-starch" or "cereal-free" but used the terms "No-Grain" and "Cereal-Grain free" to differentiate their product from others on the market described as "Barley-free" or "Oat-free", which nonetheless still contained maize grains.  

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the Feeding Stuffs Regulations 2005 defined wheatfeed as a separate legal entity to wheat and described it as a by-product of flour manufacture obtained from screened grains of wheat or dehusked spelt and the only compulsory declaration for wheatfeed on packaging was fibre content.  We understood that the Feed Balancer contained wheatfeed, which was a by-product of the flour milling process and would therefore contain particles of cereal, but we noted that it did not contain whole cereal grains.  We considered that the claims "No-Grain" and "Cereal-Grain free" would be understood by consumers to refer to the whole grain content rather than any cereal based by-product used in the feed.  Because the horse feed did not contain whole cereal grain, we considered the leaflet was unlikely to mislead consumers about the content of the feed.

We investigated the leaflet under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)