Huel's meal-replacement advert pulled after watchdog ruling it promoted "irresponsible" eating

A television and social media advert for Huel, the British maker of "complete nutrition" shakes, has been banned by the UK's advertising watchdog after regulators concluded that it implied eating nothing but the brand's products was nutritionally sound and compatible with elite athletic performance. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found the campaign encouraged or condoned irresponsible dietary practices, a decision the company says it will respect but which reopens questions about how meal-replacement brands are permitted to market their products.

The ruling follows a complaint-driven investigation into a video featuring Huel brand ambassador Spencer Matthews in conversation with the company's founder, Julian Hearn. Styled as a podcast interview, the ad was published as a sponsored Instagram post and as a YouTube pre-roll advertisement. The Instagram caption read: "Here's how our founder uses Huel. Spoiler alert it's not for every meal."

At the centre of the case is Matthews' account of a man he encountered while competing in an ultramarathon — a runner who, he said, "only eats Huel". Matthews described being deeply sceptical that such a competitor could hold his own over the distance, before adding that the man "won it by miles, like literally just left us all in the dirt". Hearn responded in the ad that ideally people should eat nutritionally complete whole food, but that most people either do not or lack the time to do so, "and therefore that's where Huel fits in the gap".

The ASA said viewers could take from the anecdote that replacing all conventional food with Huel was nutritionally appropriate and posed no obstacle to outstanding physical performance. In its ruling, the regulator acknowledged that the advert did not explicitly instruct audiences to replace every meal with a Huel product — Huel had argued as much — but said the anecdote nevertheless conveyed exclusive consumption of the brand as "an acceptable dietary practice". Presenting the story that way, it said, "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".

The watchdog went further on health claims, upholding part of a complaint that Matthews' story "implied a beneficial relationship between consuming Huel and the ability to sustain exceptionally high levels of physical and endurance performance". Two of the four complainants who brought the case to the ASA challenged both the responsibility of the content and whether its health claims breached the advertising code.

Huel, in its defence, said the advert "unambiguously positioned Huel as part of a balanced diet for occasions when preparing whole food was not practicable". The company pointed to Matthews' visible reaction of "extreme scepticism and disbelief", arguing the story was told as a remarkable and unexpected anecdote rather than as a typical outcome or an instruction for viewers to copy. "At no point in the ads did either speaker suggest that consumers should adopt a 100% Huel diet," it said.

Hearn himself, whose eating pattern was part of the pitch, described having Huel products for breakfast and lunch during the working week while eating what he called a "traditional meal" when he got home. The company also notes that Matthews' remarks were "not a recommendation or instruction" and that the purpose of the ad was to challenge the assumption that Huel could stand in for every meal.

The episode is not the first time the Hertfordshire-based company, founded by Hearn in 2015, has run into trouble over claims surrounding its products. Huel is also in the middle of a takeover by French food and drinks giant Danone, a deal that has been approved by the competition watchdog. The wider market it operates in — "complete nutrition" products pitched at time-poor, health-conscious shoppers — is thought to be worth about $5.9bn (£4.4bn).

Nutrition experts have previously questioned the value of substituting meals with nutrient-rich drinks, with reporting in 2021 raising doubts about how effective such products are when used in place of whole food. That debate sits behind the ASA's decision: regulators were not simply policing the wording of an ad but the underlying implication that a liquid-only diet can sustain a body pushed to the limit in a 260km race.

A Huel spokesperson told BBC News the company had complied with the ruling. "We do not position Huel as a complete diet replacement or claim that it improves athletic performance," the spokesperson said.

For consumers watching the campaign, the practical takeaway is unchanged regardless of the ruling: the brand describes its own shakes as nutritionally complete, but neither the company nor the regulator endorses living on them alone. The ASA's finding, however, narrows the ground brands in this fast-growing category can use to sell that proposition, and makes clear that an extraordinary anecdote about performance can be read by regulators as an implied claim.