Complaint against Food Standard Agency advert for Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme rejected
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has dismissed a complaint by EBLEX (the organisation for beef and lamb levy payers in England) which claimed the advert could mislead consumers about the safety of eating lamb when dining out, including in pubs.
The advertising campaign, which ran in national press, online and telephone kiosk posters from 11 February until the end March, aimed to get consumers to check hygiene standards before choosing where to eat out and featured an image of a lamb dish in a urinal with the wording “Where are you really eating out?”.
The advert is one of several used in the campaign and is part of the FSA’s strategy to promote the Food Hygiene Ratings Scheme (FHRS) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (FHIS) in Scotland.
But the ASA has ruled that that it was unlikely the advertisement would mislead consumers about the safety of eating lamb and doubted they would see it as a comment about the meat used, rather than the hygiene issues highlighted.
The ASA added that the advertisement focused on the standards of hygiene of ‘where’ consumers would be eating, rather than what they would be eating and noted that the image of the lamb cutlets was ‘incidental’ and used to show high quality food in an environment usually associated with poor hygiene. As a result, they concluded that there were no grounds for further action.
Peter Hardwick, EBLEX head of trade development, said: “We are naturally disappointed and maintain that it was an ill-judged choice of image, but accept the ASA judgment.
“However, now that it is aware of the depth of feeling about this image and the potential damage to the lamb industry, we hope the FSA will commit to not using it in any future campaign, particularly bearing in mind the current difficulties the sector is experiencing with lamb losses as a result of the extreme weather.”
Stephen Humphreys, director of communications at the FSA, said: 'We are pleased that the ASA rejected this complaint. The campaign was designed to challenge assumptions that an establishment’s appearance alone is the best way to judge standards of hygiene. We were simply reminding consumers to check hygiene standards when eating out. We always trusted the intelligence of consumers to realise we were making a point about the food establishments, not the food itself.'
