Legal Research

ASA rules Waitrose telling porkies in ad

By scott

Do you know what “outdoor bred” means?

Now according to Waitrose , “outdoor bred” is a wide used standard industry term meaning: that pigs were born in fields, where they were kept until weaning, and then they were moved indoors, into light and airy sheds with straw. They said farrowing crates (stalls for sows feeding young) were not used. Waitrose said “outdoor bred” had a meaning distinct from “outdoor reared”, which was another industry-standard term that meant pigs were reared for approximately half their lives in fields.

The problem with this comes when you then have an advert which shows Heston Blumenthal stood in a field with pigs wandering outdoors, while a farmer fed them; they put straw into nearby sties. In the ad Heston then asks the farmer “what is it about outdoor bred pigs that makes the meat taste so good??; the farmer replied ?I think it?s got to be the environment they?re living in; plenty of fresh air, cereal-based diet and of course a comfortable bed?. Pigs were shown laying on a bed of straw in the sty. A number of other similar ads all rammed home the message that Waitrose pork and bacon comes from British outdoor bred pigs.

Indeed some might ask if the visuals of the ad misleadingly implied Waitrose’s pork came from pigs that spent the duration of their lives outdoors. Hmm … That would be a yes.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) though so too. They said, whilst “outdoor bred” may very well be a commonly understood term in the pig farming industry, the average viewer was unlikely to be aware of its particular meaning ‘particularly in the context of ads that showed pigs outdoors and referred to the “happy” pigs and pigs that got ” … plenty of fresh air … “, viewers were likely to understand “outdoor bred” to mean that the pigs that were used to produce the product spent the duration of their lives outdoors.’

Frankly, this doesn’t reflect that well on Heston of Delia either. But, hey, they got paid well, I’m sure.

Full post as published by Information Overload on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).