Advertisment
The advertisement opened with a young girl sitting at a kitchen countertop, she has a
Frube in each hand and the Frube box is beside her on the countertop. The girl’s mum is working in the background at the kitchen sink.
The young girl speaks as follows:
“Mum says Frubes are yummy and nutritious, but I’ve never found a nutritious tasting one (on screen text reads for the duration of the advertisement “Claims based on 2X40g tubes of fromage frais as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle” ) As she eats separately from each tube she speaks again “mmm that was one of the yummy ones! That was yummy too!”
As the young girl turns to open the Frube box she says “So where’s these nutritious tasting ones then?
Mum turns around from the sink and says ” Daisy!!”
Male Voiceover: “Frubes are yummy and contain Vitamin D and calcium, keeping kids happy and mums happy too.”
The end frame featured an image of a bone accompanied by the following text:
“Vitamin D & Calcium for STRONG BONES
Kids happy. Mums Happy”
Complaint
The complainant said he considered the advertising to be misleading and challenged how Frubes could be classed as ‘nutritious’ as he understood they were high in sugar and had a lower nutritive value than comparable products.
Response
The advertisers said they did not consider their use of the word “nutritious” in their advertising to be to be misleading for the following reasons:
• Frubes contained a significant amount of calcium and Vitamin D and could therefore bear the calcium-and vitamin D-related nutrient claims authorised by the European Commission.
• Frubes could also bear the health claim authorised by the European Commission related to calcium and vitamin D content i.e. “Calcium and Vitamin D are needed for normal growth and development of bone in children”.
• Frubes were not classed as a high fat sugar and salt (HFSS) product
The advertisers said that, no single product could cover all nutritional needs in a balanced way and that was why the quantity of one single nutrient, such as sugar, had to be balanced with daily nutritional requirements and a child’s overall diet. They said dairy products were “dense” in essential nutrients and contained energy-giving ingredients, including lactose which was naturally present in milk, sucrose and fructose, as well as other nutrients such as proteins, vitamins and minerals, while at the same time containing low levels of fat.
The advertisers said that while specific nutrient profiles as a condition for the use of nutrition and health claims had yet to be adopted at EU level, they looked to Ireland’s HFSS criteria as well as to the EU Pledge for Responsible Marketing of Food and Drink to Children , which they had adopted as a company to assess Frubes’ nutrient profile. They said based on these criteria, Frubes were not a HFSS product and fully met the requirements of the EU Pledge. Accordingly they believed Frubes had a “good nutrient profile” that justified the use of their claim.
The advertisers said that according to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey in the UK, contribution of yoghurt, fromage frais and other dairy desserts to added sugar in children between 4-10 years was only 6%.
They added that the level of sugar in Frubes was comparable to other flavoured yoghurts on the Irish market and that the recommended serving of two tubes did not make a disproportionate contribution to a child’s daily recommended allowance for added sugars.
In conclusion the advertisers said that in Ireland, research has shown that 37% of girls and 28% of boys between the ages of 5 – 12 did not get the recommended daily amounts of calcium, and a further 88% of primary school children got less than half of the recommended daily amount of vitamin D. As part of a balanced diet, therefore, the advertisers said Frubes played an important role in contributing to a child’s nutritional needs.
Conclusion
Complaint not upheld.
The Complaints Committee considered the details of the complaint and the advertisers’ response. The Committee noted that the nutritional and health claims were authorised claims and that the on-screen text had referred to the fact that the product claims were “based on 2X40g tubes of fromage frais as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle.
The Committee did not consider that the claim that the product was ‘nutritious’ was likely to mislead and did not therefore consider the advertising to be in breach of the Code.
No further action was required in this case.
