Huel's meal-replacement advert banned after ASA rules it promotes "irresponsible" diet

A television and social media advertisement for Huel, the nutritional drink brand currently being taken over by Danone, has been banned by the UK's advertising watchdog for encouraging or condoning what it called "irresponsible" dietary practices. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the commercial, which featured the brand's ambassador Spencer Matthews describing an ultramarathon runner who ate nothing but Huel, risked implying that replacing all conventional food with the company's products was both nutritionally sound and compatible with elite sporting performance.

The banned ad was a podcast-style conversation in which Matthews, a television personality, questioned Huel founder Julian Hearn about how he uses the brand's products. Hearn said he has Huel for breakfast and lunch during the working week but eats a "traditional meal" when he gets home. The Instagram caption accompanying the sponsored post made a similar point: "Here's how our founder uses Huel. Spoiler alert it's not for every meal." The video also ran as a YouTube pre-roll advert.

Matthews then recounted meeting a competitor while he was competing in an ultramarathon — a 260km race — who "only eats Huel". He said he was deeply sceptical that such a person would be able to manage the distance, before adding: "He won it by miles, like literally just left us all in the dirt." Hearn replied that in an ideal world, people should eat nutritionally complete whole food, but that most people either do not or cannot find the time, "and therefore that's where Huel fits in the gap".

Huel's defence rested largely on the framing of the story. The company argued that Matthews's anecdote was "not a recommendation or instruction" and that the purpose of the advert was to challenge the widespread misconception that Huel could replace every meal. In its formal response to the ASA, Huel said the advert "unambiguously positioned Huel as part of a balanced diet for occasions when preparing whole food was not practicable". It also pointed to Matthews's visible reaction of "extreme scepticism and disbelief" at the idea of someone living solely on the products, insisting the story was told as a remarkable and unexpected occurrence rather than a representative outcome, and that "at no point in the ads did either speaker suggest that consumers should adopt a 100% Huel diet".

The ASA accepted that the advert did not explicitly tell viewers to stop eating normal food. But its judgement was that the tone and context of the story nevertheless conveyed endorsement. By presenting exclusive consumption of Huel alongside a superhuman athletic achievement, the ruling said, the ads "suggested that the complete replacement of conventional food with Huel was nutritionally appropriate and presented no barrier to achieving a high level of physical performance". Viewers, the watchdog concluded, could come away assuming the practice was acceptable simply because the ad never expressly forbade it.

The health claims were treated separately, and the ASA upheld them too. Four complaints were received about the advert, with two also challenging whether its health-related statements broke advertising rules. On that count, the watchdog found that Matthews's story about the ultramarathon competitor "implied a beneficial relationship between consuming Huel and the ability to sustain exceptionally high levels of physical and endurance performance" — something the company had not sought to advertise and did not want to be associated with.

Huel, a Hertfordshire-based business founded by Hearn in 2015, has said it complied with the ruling. A spokesperson told BBC News: "We do not position Huel as a complete diet replacement or claim that it improves athletic performance." The company is also in the middle of being acquired by French food giant Danone, in a deal described in related reporting as worth about €1bn and already approved by the competition watchdog, meaning the reputational scrutiny of the brand's marketing now falls on a prospective multinational owner.

The ruling lands in a growing and commercially significant category. Products marketed as "complete nutrition" — aimed largely at time-poor, health-conscious shoppers — are thought to account for a global market worth an estimated $5.9bn (£4.4bn), with Huel one of the best-known names in the space. The brand is best known for shakes it describes as nutritionally complete meal replacements, a proposition that sits uneasily with conventional dietary guidance.

It is not the first time Huel has run into trouble with the ASA over presenting its products as a substitute for everyday food, suggesting regulators have already circled the same issue. Independent experts have also questioned how effective it is to replace meals with nutritionally rich drinks, a debate the ASA ruling appears to have leaned toward by treating the idea of total substitution as irresponsible.

For an industry built on the promise of convenience, the decision is a reminder that implication counts. The ASA did not need the ad to contain a direct instruction for the practice to be condemned; a single improbable anecdote, delivered in a tone of astonishment by a famous face, was enough. Brands operating in the meal-replacement market can expect similar claims to face scrutiny, and the case is likely to be studied by marketers working out just how far suggestion can be pushed before a compliance ruling follows.