Tesco has seen its ‘Plant Chef’ vegan burger adverts banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after being accused of making ‘misleading’ claims about its environmental impact compared to meat.
The ASA said the ads, which ran in October and November 2021, were misleading for saying Tesco’s Plant Chef burgers were better for the environment than meat equivalents. As a result, more than 171 complaints were made to the ASA about the adverts.
“We’ve lowered the price of dozens of our Plant Chef products because a little swap can make a difference to the planet,” the ads said.
READ MORE: Tesco donates almost £100,000 to mark Pride
The ASA said: “We expected to see evidence that that was the case based on the full life cycle of the Plant Chef burger in comparison with a meat burger.
“However, we understood that Tesco did not hold any evidence in relation to the full lifecycle of any of the products in the Plant Chef range, or of the burger featured in the ads.”
“We were therefore unable to assess the product’s total environmental impact over its life cycle compared with that of a meat burger.
The ASA concluded that the: “claims regarding their positive benefits to the planet had not been substantiated and were likely to mislead”.
Click here to sign up to Grocery Gazette’s free daily email newsletter
