Food ad claims given a grilling

27 November 2007

Functioning properly?

Modern life can be hectic.  So much so that the pressures of our 24:7 lifestyles can harm our health.  Skipping main meals and snacking on fatty, sugary foods instead, not eating a balanced diet, long work hours and forgoing exercise can all contribute to potential health problems.  To counter our increasingly busy lives and ensure we get our daily intake of essential nutrients and vitamins to keep us healthy, manufacturers are now creating more and more “functional” food and drink products.

Functional foods are products that contain ingredients beyond their basic nutritional composition and are generally recognised as having health benefits.  Advertisements extolling the virtues of those products have proliferated in recent years and the number of complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority has increased as members of the public have objected to what they believe to be souped-up claims.

Innocent until proven guilty

When it ran a national press ad for its “Superfoods Smoothies”,  the smoothie-maker Innocent claimed that the “natural detox” smoothie contained “even more antioxidants than the average five a day”.  A member of the public challenged whether the smoothie had a detoxifying effect and whether it contained more antioxidants than the recommended five-a-day average portions of fruit and vegetables.

Innocent pointed out that fruits, such as pomegrantes, that were in the Superfoods Smoothie contained high levels of antioxidants that neutralised free radicals; because they soaked up the free radicals, they therefore detoxified the body.  Innocent provided evidence to show that the oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC) value, which gave a measure of the Smoothie’s antioxidant content, showed that the product had a higher value than did an average five portions of fruit and vegetables.

The ASA understood that detoxifying involved reducing the number of toxins in the body’s system but “neutralising” or “soaking up” free radicals did not amount to removing toxins from the body.  As for the product containing more antioxidants than five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, the ASA noted that accepted nutritional advice was that fruit juice and smoothies could count towards only one portion, no matter how much was consumed.  Based on the evidence that the advertiser had submitted, the ASA was not satisfied that  Innocent had proved the product provided more antioxidants than five daily portions of fruit and vegetables.  Read the adjudication.

Milking it

If you ask anyone over a certain age to name a famous ad for milk, in all probability they will break into a Scouse accent and start yelling “Accrington Stanley, who are they?!”  Milk has long been promoted as a source of nutritional goodness and the ads over the years have been as popular as the drink itself.  But it all turned a bit sour last year when the ASA upheld complaints against Dairy Crest for a claim about St. Ivel advance milk.

Two members of the public objected to two ads that claimed that according to research “Omega 3 improves concentration and learning in some children” and “New St Ivel advance is fresh milk enriched with Omega 3”.  The complainants challenged whether more Omega 3, and therefore St. Ivel advance, enhanced children’s concentration and learning.

St Ivel provided rafts of research results, documentary evidence and findings from scientific studies and trials as well as statements from experts in support of the possible benefits of supplementation with Omega 3 to enhance children’s performance.

The ASA noted the level of Omega 3 used in the trials St Ivel cited was different from that in two glasses of St Ivel advance.  The concentrations of Omega 3 used in the trials were not the same as those in advance and the supplement used in the trial contained other ingredients that were not present in advance.  The ASA therefore had not seen evidence to prove that the amount of Omega 3 in advance milk was likely to have the same effect as the supplement used in the trials.  Although it acknowledged the generally positive opinions of the experts whose comments formed part of the advertiser’s argument,  the ASA advised St Ivel not to use the claim until definitive evidence supported it.  Read the adjudication.

Not everyone’s cup of tea

Although the scientific evidence used to prove the benefits of functional foods can be highly complex, the rules governing what you can and cannot say in ads are straightforward.  Encouraging healthy diets and promoting products that are beneficial to general well-being are perfectly acceptable but only if the claims being made about them can be substantiated.

Recently, the Tea Council found out to its cost that not having evidence to back up the claim “4 cups a day can contribute to a diet rich in antioxidants which could help to protect your body against the damaging effects of free radicals” meant that the ASA adjudicated that it had breached the Code.  Read the adjudication.

So, by all means highlight the functionality of your functional food.  But remember, confusing or pseudo-scientific terminology is unacceptable and will merely serve to leave an unpalatable taste in consumer’s mouths.  Make sure you have definitive evidence to demonstrate how your product has an extra health benefit. Ultimately the ASA will abide by the old adage: the proof is in the pudding.