A Just Eat advert featuring several high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) products, including McDonald’s burgers, has been banned for not taking “sufficient care” to ensure it was not targeting children under the age of 16.

According to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), anti-junk food youth campaign group Biteback 2030 challenged whether the ad was for a product that was HFSS and was directed at children through the media or context in which it appeared.

The advert featured the line: “Fancy a McMuffin in the morning? McNugget for lunch? Or a big night in with a Big Mac? Get them delivered right here” alongside a changing image of McNuggets that were replaced by the Just Eat and McDonald’s logos.

While Just Eat said that it was McDonald’s that determined the status of its products, it did understand that the meat variants of the Big Mac and McMuffin were HFSS products.

The rapid delivery firm also claimed that it had targeted the ad at individuals aged over 18 years using age targeting tools and highlighted that if the complainant had a Facebook account registered with an age of under 18, they would not have been able to see the ad.

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However, the ASA said that Just Eat had not taken interest-based factors into account.

The watchdog said: “We acknowledged that age-based targeting was applied to the ad to exclude those who were registered as under-18 on Facebook from seeing the ad. However, interest-based targeting factors had not been used to exclude groups of people more likely to be under 16.

“The ad was a paid-for ad on Facebook; we understood that interest-based targeting measures were available for such ads, and consequently, we considered that Just Eat should have utilised those tools to minimise the exposure of the ad to under-16s.

“We concluded that Just Eat had not taken sufficient care to ensure that the ad, which promoted several HFSS products, was not directed at individuals aged under 16 years.”

A Just Eat spokesperson told The Evening Standard: “By filtering targeting to users aged over 18, we believe we took reasonable precautions to avoid protected age groups from seeing the advertisement.

“Although we are disappointed by this outcome, Just Eat acknowledges the ASA’s concern. We are now reviewing our processes to ensure future promotions reach only the intended audience while continuing to offer great choice and value to customers.”