The Huel advertising controversy explained
Food supplement firm Huel has been hit by yet another ban for one of its adverts over unsubstantiated claims about its benefits.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated the ad for its Daily Greens product after receiving a complaint about the content and claims about its cost.
The post was made on Huel’s Instagram account, seen on 3 April, and featured company founder Julian Hearn. The ASA considered the claims and ruled that the advert must not appear again.
It comes after the ASA issued a separate ban for a Huel ad featuring entrepreneur Steven Bartlett just last month. The watchdog also banned another Huel advert in February 2023 over claims about its financial benefits.
Here, Yahoo News UK breaks down the controversy behind the latest Huel advert to be banned by the watchdog.
What is Huel?
Huel, set up by Julian Hearn and James Collier in 2014, is a well-known brand of nutritional powdered food. Its name is derived from a mash-up of ‘Human Fuel’.
The brand was set up to offer meal replacements that fulfil all of the body’s nutritional needs in its initial sole product – shakes that just need water added. However, the company has now branched out into ready-made drinks, energy bars and meals.
Ingredients in Huel's drinks include powdered oats, rice protein, pea protein, sunflower, flaxseed, coconut oil, and several vitamin and mineral dietary supplements.
What did the advert say?
The latest advert to be banned by the ASA was featured on Huel’s Instagram page earlier this year. In it, company founder Hearn claimed: “You’ve been told your whole life to eat greens and a lot of people can’t get that amount of greens into their diet… we’ve taken a very broad range of greens, so you get a product which is equally good, or in my eyes better, but you get it substantially cheaper.”
The caption of the post read: “Superfoods to supercharge your health. Huel Daily Greens is packed with… gut-friendly probiotics.
“All the nutrients your body needs to thrive; Reduce tiredness and fatigue with 26 essential vitamins and minerals like iron; Excellent source of biotin and collagen to support smooth, healthy skin.”
Why were the adverts banned?
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated the latest ad after receiving a complaint that took issue with the comparison between Huel’s product and “greens”, as well as the claim that Huel was “substantially cheaper” than an equivalent portion of greens.
Only nutrition claims authorised on the Great Britain Nutrition and Health Claims register are permitted to be used in advertising.
The ASA said customers would generally understand “eat your greens” to mean eating vegetables and that Huel was comparing the cost and nutritional value of its product to green vegetables.
It said: “Because we had not seen evidence that the Daily Greens product was cheaper than a portion of greens, we concluded that the claim the product was ‘substantially cheaper’ than an equivalent portion of greens was misleading and could not be substantiated.”
The ASA said all health claims for food and food supplements had to be authorised by a regulator and “must be presented clearly and without exaggeration”.
The watchdog issued a separate ban for a Huel ad just last month after it failed to disclose the commercial relationship with celebrity entrepreneur Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett. The ASA found Huel “omitted material information” about its links to Bartlett.
It also banned another Huel advert in February 2023 which suggested its replacement shakes could save people money on their food bills. The ad claimed a month’s supply of the meal supplement could cost less than £50 without making clear that this was based on having one meal replacement per day.
What has Huel said?
Huel told the ASA that the Instagram ad had been shortened due to an “editing error”, leaving the impression that the comparison was with fresh green vegetables.
It told that watchdog that it recognised the error fell short of its standards and confirmed it was taking steps to ensure it was not repeated.
In the ads that featured Bartlett, Huel argued that consumers had no doubt about the existence of such commercial relationships when they saw the endorsement within a paid-for ad taken out by a company. This expectation removed the need for the commercial relationship to be explicitly stated, Huel claimed.
Who is Steven Bartlett?
British entrepreneur Bartlett is perhaps best known for his regular appearances on Dragons’ Den. The 34-year-old dropped out of university at 18 to focus on his business career.
He founded messaging board Wallpark in 2013 and co-founded marketing agency Social Chain when he was 22. After taking Social Chain public in 2019, Bartlett went on to set up Thirdweb and Flight Story and now runs several companies and is a successful author and his podcast, The Diary of a CEO, has attracted guests including One Direction singer Liam Payne and former health secretary Matt Hancock.
Bartlett is a director at Huel and is also an investor in Zoe, a health testing and diet advice company.
An advert for Zoe was also banned last month after it featured an image of Bartlett with a Zoe patch on his arm, with text in the form of a quote from Bartlett which stated: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life.”
Announcing its ruling to ban the ad, the regulator said: “Steven Bartlett was an investor in Zoe, which we considered was material to consumers’ understanding of the ad and relevant in making an informed decision about the product. Because the ad omitted material information about Steven Bartlett being an investor in Zoe, we concluded that it was misleading.”
