Vegan brand Oatly has adverts banned by watchdog

Oatly has had adverts banned after the UK's advertisement watchdog said they were 'misleading'
Oatly has had adverts banned after the UK's advertisement watchdog said they were 'misleading'

Vegan brand Oatly has had its marketing campaign banned after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled they were 'misleading'.

Farming groups had accused the Swedish brand of 'seriously misusing statistics' after it claimed the "dairy and meat industries emit more CO2e than all the world’s planes, trains, cars, boats etc combined".

Oatly's TV and social media advertisements also claimed the firm "generates 73% less CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) vs milk, calculated from grower to grocer".

And one advert claimed: “Today, more than 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases are generated by the food industry, and meat and dairy account for more than half of that.”

The ASA, the UK's advertisement watchdog, said it had received 109 complaints, including from the campaign group A Greener World, in response to the adverts.

Oatly said they commissioned CarbonCloud, independent product life cycle assessment experts, to calculate the emissions of Oatly Barista Edition oat drink and British whole cow’s milk.

They said these products were chosen for the calculations because they wanted to showcase their Barista Edition product, and whole cow’s milk was the most comparable dairy product to this because of the fat content, taste profile and suitability for speciality coffee drinks.

But the ASA said that consumers would understand the claim “Oatly generates 73% less CO2e vs. milk” to mean that all Oatly products generated 73% less CO2e compared to any type of cows’ milk.

"We therefore expected to see evidence relating to the CO2e produced for all Oatly products and types of cows’ milk," the ASA explained in its ruling.

"We had only seen evidence for the CO2e generated in the production of Oatly Barista Edition oat drink and whole cow’s milk."

The watchdog also said the claim that meat and dairy accounts for more than half of the 25% of the greenhouse gases generated by the food industry was 'defined narrowly' and 'misleading'.