Ad description
A paid-for Facebook ad for Nipper&Co, a herbal health company, seen on 23 March 2025 promoted their “MUM’S MiLK [sic]” lactation tea.
Text in the caption stated, “Our 100% natural lactation tea is made with powerful botanicals [leaf emoji] to encourage breast milk supply and postpartum hormonal balance. It’s helped 1000s of mums on their feeding journey […]”.
The ad also featured a video which began by focusing in on the product’s packaging, with overlaid text that stated, “Let’s see what a week of Nipper & Co’s lactation tea does”.
The video showed two breast pump bottles, both containing milk, while text stated, “day 1: […]” then showed a person pouring milk into a storage bag with measurements on it, while the text “Morning pump 2oz” appeared. The video then cut to a cup of herbal tea brewing, and back to a person holding a breast pump bottle up to the camera, and overlay text that stated, “7 days of daily tea = 3oz daytime pump” as the person then poured milk into another storage measuring bag, and added it to a pile of similarly filled bags.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the ad included health claims that were in breach of the Code.
Response
Nipper&Co Ltd t/a Nipper & Co said they had removed the ad and that it would not appear again in the same form. They said they were fully committed to ensuring compliance and avoiding any potentially misleading messaging, and had taken steps internally, including reviewing their process and tightening up controls with their creative partners, to ensure they adhered to the CAP Code in future.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code defined health claims as those that stated, suggested or implied that a relationship existed between a food category, a food or one of its constituents and health. Only specific health claims authorised on the Great Britain nutrition and health claims Register (the GB NHC Register) could be made in ads promoting food or drink products.
The ASA considered the claim that the tea was “made with powerful botanicals to encourage breast milk supply” stated a relationship between the drink and the production of breast milk in new mothers.
We considered that the references to the product’s name, “lactation tea” in the ad, also implied a relationship between the tea and breast milk production.
We further considered the video content, which appeared to show someone producing 2oz of breast milk whilst pumping on day one of consuming the tea, which increased to 3oz on day seven of consuming the tea, also implied that the MUM’s MiLK lactation tea could increase how much breast milk a new mother could produce.
We considered those were specific health claims for the purposes of the Code. However, we had not seen any evidence which demonstrated that those claims were authorised on the GB NHC Register.
We welcomed Nipper & Co’s action to remove the ad. However, because at the time it was seen it included specific health claims that were not authorised on the GB NHC Register, we concluded that it breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 15.1 and 15.1.1 (Food, food supplements and associated health or nutrition claims)
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Nipper&Co Ltd t/a Nipper & Co to ensure that any specific health claims made in their future advertising were authorised on the GB NHC Register and met the associated conditions of use.
