Ad description
A paid-for Facebook ad for Zoe, a food supplement retailer, seen on 19 September 2024, stated “Daily30+ is a plant-based wholefood supplement…[poo emoji] Contains chicory inulin”. Below that further text stated, “This is a supplement revolution. No ultra-processed pills, no shakes, just real food. Steven Barlett [sic]”.
Issue
The complainant, a professor in nutrition and food science, challenged whether the claim “This is a supplement revolution. No ultra-processed pills, no shakes, just real food” misleadingly implied that the product did not contain any ultra-processed ingredients.
Response
ZOE Ltd t/a Zoe said they were a science and nutrition company that participated in research and produced publications with the aim to support consumers to understand Ultra Processed Foods (UPFs) and improve their health and wellbeing.
They said the ad did not claim Daily 30+ was not ultra-processed, nor that it did not include any ultra-processed ingredients. Instead, the ad had been designed to explain that within the supplement category the product, designed as a real food supplement, was not an ultra-processed pill, unlike other supplements that would be considered ultra-processed because they contained artificial flavourings and additives. They said “wholefood supplement” was an accurate description because the product was made of whole foods with no added preservative, sweeteners or flavour enhancers and they were confident their product met the requirement for classification of a supplement.
They highlighted that there was no universally accepted single, legal or scientific established definition of UPFs. They referenced the NOVA classification system, which they said helped demonstrate the effects of high UPFs consumption when products were formulated mostly or entirely of substances extracted from foods or derived from food constituents, which included snacks, drinks and ready meals. They explained the classification system was not designed to be applied to individual ingredients, but rather an entire product.
They cited the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee report “Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system” which stated that UPFs were typically calorie-dense foods with few valuable nutrients that lacked fibre, contained high levels of unhealthy fats, refined sugar and salt, and whose ingredients had been altered. A further report from 2019 “Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them” set out a similar definition. Their product did not fit the NOVA classification criteria, nor did it fit any of the definitions or characteristics outlined in the reports.
The complainant had referred to a blog post on the ZOE website that they said suggested a product was ultra processed when it was produced using industrial-scale production methods and contained ingredients that would not be recognised or used in home cooking. ZOE said that definition had been taken out of context. The post had been written for a general audience and explained that a product could not be classified as UPFs just because industrial-scale production methods (such as canning, fermenting, freezing, and drying) had been used during the manufacturing process.
Zoe said the advertised product was a combination of 32 different foods, that included vegetables, fruits, seeds and mushrooms, that was put directly onto other food to increase fibre intake. Since they restricted the amount of ingredients that were finely ground, the product was designed to retain the food matrix of its ingredients. All ingredients went through the standard cleaning process for wholefoods, which included the removal of shell, soil and small stones where necessary. Whole seeds and nibbed nuts were used in the product, and while some ingredients were powdered, the only liquid ingredient was the chicory root inulin. Inulin was a well-researched fibre and chicory root was a natural, rich source of inulin. Chicory root inulin had proven health benefits, authorised health claim, and was used in the product for its fibre health benefit. Similarly, nutritional yeast flakes, a form of heated yeast, had known health benefits that included B-vitamins and minerals and was a good source of protein. They highlighted it was a commonly used culinary ingredient.
They also said there was nothing ‘unhealthy’ about either ingredient that made up only a small percentage of the overall product, and that the chicory root inulin specifically was extracted using a typical process that they believed was not relevant to the product’s overall NOVA classification. They explained that none of the ingredients were typical UPF ingredients and the processes used could be replicated in a small-scale home kitchen. Therefore, they highlighted that their product was a plant mix that was distinctly different from UPF products high in additives, fat, salt and sugar that are associated with poor health outcomes, and that labelling of their product as UPF on the basis of a higher level of processing of two ingredients would create a misunderstanding and increase consumer misinformation.
Assessment
Upheld
There was no universally accepted definition of UPFs. The term had been introduced in 2009 as part of the NOVA classification system, which focused on foods and their level of industrial processing and had since fallen into more general usage.
The ASA understood that while studies into consumer awareness of UPFs were limited in the UK, a scoping review of evidence report from the Advisory Committee for Social Science, an independent expert committee of the Food Standards Agency (FSA), found that many consumers did not understand the specific nature of UPFs. We considered the review showed consumers’ understanding of UPFs was not fully aligned with the NOVA classification, and that they would not be able to accurately categorise foods using the system. Instead, consumers were likely to understand in general terms that UPFs were ‘unhealthy’, and that non-UPFs were ‘healthy’. The use of the term “UPFs” could therefore act as a deterrent to consuming products that were believed to contain them.
We considered consumers would understand the claim “Daily 30+ is a […] wholefood supplement” to mean the product comprised solely of wholefood ingredients. They would understand wholefoods to be those foods that were either unprocessed or had undergone minimal levels of processing. Consequently, consumers would expect that the ingredients used in the product were all very close to their unprocessed form, and therefore those ingredients and the product as a whole were not UPFs. The ad stated, “just real food” and “No Ultra-processed pills, no shakes”, which we considered contributed to that overall impression.
We acknowledged consumers were likely to understand that most food products had been subject to some level of processing, for example cleaning or chopping. They were unlikely to consider foods that had undergone that minimal level of processing to be UPFs. However, at least two ingredients, chicory root inulin and nutritional yeast flakes, were not whole foods and had been through more than a minimal level of processing. Nutritional yeast was manufactured, and chicory root inulin was extracted using an industrial process. For the latter, the extraction process included slicing and steeping, purification using carbonated water as well as evaporation, partial enzymatic hydrolysis (adding of enzymes) and filtration. While some of those processes were relatively simple in isolation, we considered the number of stages used in processing went beyond what consumers would interpret as minimal and we considered they would likely understand chicory root inulin as UPFs.
We also considered that the product as a whole would not fall within the NOVA classification of UPFs, nor did the overall product fulfil the criteria of a UPF as defined by the House of Lords report. However, because consumer perception of UPFs was not likely aligned with these classifications or definitions, we considered it was unlikely that consumers would be aware that the NOVA classification or other scientific definitions of UPFs referred to the whole product rather than individual ingredients.
For those reasons we considered the claim “This is a supplement revolution. No ultra-processed pills, no shakes, just real food” implied the product did not contain any ingredients that consumers would interpret as ultra-processed when that was not the case and was therefore likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading Advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
Action
The ad must not appear in the form complained of. We told ZOE Ltd not to make claims that their products did not contain UPFs ingredients if consumers were likely to interpret the ingredients to be ultra-processed.
