Cereal Partners UK 2 Albany Place 28 Bridge Road East Welwyn Garden City Hertfordshire AL7 1RR Number of complaints: 7

Date: 11 June 2008 Media: Television Sector: Food and drink Agency: McCann Erickson Advertising UK Ltd

Ad
A TV ad, for Nestle breakfast cereals, showed members of the public talking about wholegrain. The voice-over stated "Experts say you need three servings of wholegrain a day ... All of these Nestle cereals have wholegrain guaranteed. Not all cereals do ... Look for three a day on Nestle cereals ... On your way to three a day". On-screen text also stated "ON YOUR WAY TO 3-A-DAY".

Issue
Seven viewers challenged the basis for the claim "Experts say you need three servings of wholegrain a day".

BCAP TV Advertising Code:

5.1;5.2.1;8.3.1(a);8.3.1(b);8.3.1(d)

Response
Cereal Partners UK (Cereal Partners) supplied a copy of the same document they supplied to Clearcast when they cleared the ad for broadcast. The document summarised the findings of several epidemiological studies carried out in a number of countries which they believed demonstrated a link between wholegrain and prevention against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. The authors said some of the studies had quantified recommendations for the amount of wholegrain that should be consumed for beneficial effect. They said the American Government, in its "Dietary Guidelines for Americans," advised that consumers should aim to eat three, 16 g portions of wholegrain foods per day. The authors believed two studies undertaken by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK endorsed the American Government's advice and would be used to develop public health strategies in the UK. At the time of writing, they expected the two UK studies to report their findings at the end of 2007.

Cereal Partners said the date for reporting the results of the UK studies was subsequently postponed until later in 2008. They said that, in addition to the findings cited by the authors of their document, other organisations and governments had issued guidelines suggesting similar or greater intakes of wholegrains.

Cereal Partners said the claim was intended to refer to wholegrains as an ingredient and was not a nutrition claim but that, nevertheless, research had shown that nine out of ten people in the UK did not eat enough wholegrains, and that the ad was designed to increase people's awareness of the need to eat more of them.

Clearcast said they had consulted a nutritional expert and understood the health benefits of eating more wholegrains were well established and accepted. They said the claim was based on an interpretation of US Government dietary guidelines that people should consume three, 16 g portions of wholegrain per day. They had ensured the ad contained text that defined a portion as 16 g because they believed this concept was likely to be unfamiliar to UK viewers, and had ensured the ad made clear that one serving of the cereals featured provided only one of the recommended three portions of wholegrain per day. They had also ensured that only cereals that provided 16 g of wholegrain per serving were included in the ad.

Assessment
Upheld
The ASA took advice from the FSA. We understood from them that UK Government advice was that a healthy, balanced diet should have plenty of fruit and vegetables (at least five portions of a variety every day), plenty of starchy foods (such as bread, rice, potatoes and pasta, choosing wholegrain varieties where possible), some milk and dairy foods, some meat, fish, eggs, beans and other non-dairy sources of protein, and just a small amount of foods and drinks high in fat and/or sugar.

The FSA said there was no specific UK Government recommendation on the amount of wholegrain foods that should be eaten. They said the advice to "choose wholegrain varieties where possible" related to the need for consumers to increase their intake of fibre. They said it was recommended that the amount of fibre consumed by UK adults should rise from the current average of 13.8 g per day to 18 g per day, but that fibre was found in a range of foods - fruit, vegetables, cereals and barley - and was not exclusive to wholegrain foods. The FSA confirmed that they had commissioned a trial to assess the impact of increased consumption of wholegrain foods on the risk of cardiovascular disease, but that its findings had not yet been presented to the FSA or peer-reviewed. They said that, depending on the outcome of project reviews, any decision to change Government advice would be taken after independent scientific committees had had an opportunity to discuss and advise on the findings. They said the FSA had no current plans to change its healthy eating advice on wholegrain foods, which was "to try to choose wholegrain foods whenever possible" as part of a balanced diet.

We noted that the studies cited by Cereal Partners and Clearcast supported the view that an increased consumption of wholegrain foods was likely to be beneficial to health. We also noted that some of those studies had gone so far as to recommend a specific daily quantity of wholegrain foods for adults, and that the American Dietetic Association in particular recommended that adults should consume three 16 g portions of wholegrain foods per day. We noted Cereals Partners' argument that the claim made in the ad referred to wholegrain as an ingredient, and was therefore not a nutritional claim. Nevertheless, we considered that viewers were likely to interpret the claims made in the ad as nutritional, i.e. that there were recognised health benefits to be gained by consuming three portions of wholegrain a day. We understood, however, that there were no formal UK Government recommendations relating to the precise manner in which sufficient amounts of wholegrain food should be eaten on a daily basis; nor were there any current plans to adopt such a recommendation. We also understood that that was because the fibre found in wholegrain was available in a wide range of other foods, including fruit and vegetables, and that it might be preferable for consumers to get fibre from those sources, rather than from specific wholegrain foods that might contain other, less beneficial, ingredients. We considered that the ad implied that there was a consensus of opinion among experts regarding the specific quantity of wholegrain foods that should be consumed on a daily basis. However, we understood that only some experts had recommended that specific amounts of wholegrain should be eaten on a daily basis, and that others, such as the FSA, had made a broader recommendation that people should increase their intake of fibre in general. Because of that, and because we considered that the similarity between the "3-a-day" phrase used in the ad and the Government's "5-a-day" recommendation for fruit and vegetables could cause confusion among viewers, we concluded that the ad was misleading.

The ad breached CAP (Broadcast) TV Advertising Standards Code rules 5.1 (Misleading advertising), 5.2.1 (Evidence) and 8.3.1 (a), (b) and (d) (Accuracy in food advertising).

Action
The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Broadcast)