Huel ad banned for implying its shakes could replace all food and fuel record feats

An advertisement for Huel meal replacement shakes has been ruled against by the Advertising Standards Authority, which said the content encouraged or condoned "irresponsible" dietary practices by implying that living on the brand's products alone was nutritionally sound and compatible with elite physical performance.

The banned ad featured Huel brand ambassador Spencer Matthews recounting an anecdote about a person he met who "only eats Huel" and who went on to win a 260km race "by miles". The ASA said viewers could reasonably take away the message that swapping out all conventional food for Huel was a nutritionally appropriate choice with no apparent barrier to outstanding athletic achievement.

Huel, in its response to the ASA, disputed that reading. The company said the anecdote was never "a recommendation or instruction", and that the purpose of the ad was specifically to challenge the widespread misconception that Huel could stand in for every meal consumers eat.

The campaign ran as a sponsored Instagram post and as a YouTube pre-roll advert, and was staged in the format of a podcast conversation. Matthews, the former Made in Chelsea and Selling the Sunset cast member, is shown speaking to Huel founder Julian Hearn in a bid to sound like an intimate, unscripted chat rather than a polished sales pitch.

The Instagram post carried the caption: "Here's how our founder uses Huel. Spoiler alert it's not for every meal." That framing was supported in the video itself, with Hearn explaining that he consumes Huel products for breakfast and lunch during the working week but has what he calls a "traditional meal" when he goes home.

Matthews then described the encounter that triggered the complaint. He said that while competing in an ultramarathon he met a man who "only eats Huel". He recalled being deeply doubtful that such a person would manage the demands of the distance, but said the man then "won it by miles, like literally just left us all in the dirt."

Hearn's reply in the advert was carefully hedged. He said: "In an ideal world, you should have nutritionally complete whole food." He added that most people either don't manage that or don't have the time to do so, "and therefore that's where Huel fits in the gap" — positioning the brand as a convenience fill-in rather than a genuine substitute for a balanced diet.

Despite that qualification, the ASA found the overall effect misleading. The watchdog acknowledged that the ad "did not explicitly recommend that consumers replace all conventional foods with Huel", but ruled that the anecdote could nonetheless be read as depicting exclusive Huel consumption as "an acceptable dietary practice".

"By presenting exclusive consumption of Huel in that context, the ads 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 ruling said.

The health claims were also challenged and upheld. The ASA said Matthews' story about the ultramarathon athlete "implied a beneficial relationship between consuming Huel and the ability to sustain exceptionally high levels of physical and endurance performance" — a claim the watchdog found breached its advertising code on health claims.

The ASA said it had received four complaints about the advert, each questioning whether the content was irresponsible. Two of those complainants went further, also arguing that the embedded health claims were themselves in breach of the ASA's code — the outcome that produced the additional upheld complaint.

Huel maintained to the ASA that the advert "unambiguously positioned Huel as part of a balanced diet for occasions when preparing whole food was not practicable". The company also pointed to the footage showing Matthews reacting with "extreme scepticism and disbelief" to the idea of a person subsisting solely on Huel, arguing that the story was framed as a remarkable, unexpected anecdote rather than a representative 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," Huel told the watchdog, adding that the recollection was not offered as a recommendation or an instruction to consumers to replicate.

The ruling lands at a sensitive moment for the brand. Huel, which is based in Hertfordshire, was founded by Hearn in 2015 and is currently in the process of being acquired by the French food and drinks conglomerate Danone. A marketing dispute over what the company can and cannot claim about its products therefore arrives while ownership is changing hands.

The commercial backdrop is sizeable. The market for so-called complete nutrition products, aimed at time-poor and health-conscious consumers, is thought to be worth $5.9bn (£4.4bn), and Huel has become one of the most visible names in a category that has grown heavily around the idea of skipping meals in favour of formulated drinks.

The ASA action is not the first time the brand has run into trouble with the regulator over the way its products are presented as substitutes for conventional food — a history that suggests repeated pressure from either consumers or campaigners on claims of this type.

Independently of the ad ruling, some experts have questioned the effectiveness of replacing meals with nutritionally rich drinks, an issue that sits uncomfortably beside a ruling which found the ad implied a link between consuming Huel and exceptional endurance performance.

Huel said it had complied with the ASA's decision. In a statement to BBC News, a spokesperson said: "We do not position Huel as a complete diet replacement or claim that it improves athletic performance."

For regulators, the case illustrates a familiar difficulty: a brand can qualify its claims in the fine print of a script, while the story a celebrity is asked to tell does the persuasive work instead. For consumers, it is a reminder to read the small print behind the anecdote — and, arguably, behind the £4.4bn industry built on convenience.