The UK advertising watchdog has banned Raisio’s online advert for its Honey Monster cereal, alleging it breached EU rules on health and nutrition claims.
The ad, which included the claim “yummy honey goodness for a monsterfied breakfast…20% more honey”, saw a complaint come in from the Children’s Food Campaign. It challenged the claim “honey goodness” on the basis it is a “general health claim not accompanied by a specific authorised health claim”.
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Raisio’s UK arm Halo Foods said it had increased the amount of honey in the product while lowering the amount of sugar, a move it had decided to communicate on its website. It added it was “transparent about the sugar content of the product” and “did not intend to make any specific health claims in association with honey”. However, it has since amended its website to remove any reference to “goodness”.
Malcolm Clark, co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign, said: “We’re pleased that the Advertising Standards Authority has stopped the Honey Monster from trying to pull his yellow fur over consumers’ eyes and pretend the cereal is healthier than its sugary reality. It still contains 8.6g (a cube and a half) of sugar per bowl – a monsterfied breakfast indeed from a dental health perspective.”
Clark added it is the second incident involving Honey Monster since 2012. At the time the case was informally resolved by the ASA and the “honey goodness” claim was pulled from the brand’s website.
A spokesperson for Halo told just-food the first incident referred to a time when Honey Monster was not owned by Raisio. The spokesperson said the latest episode was “not an intentional repetition of the issue”.
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By GlobalData“We understand current concerns about sugar and wish to ensure that we are as transparent and informative as possible for our customers. As soon as we received the original communication from the ASA, which referred to a line on a temporary website for the new Honey Monster Puffs product, we took immediate action and removed the reference to ‘honey goodness’.”
