Huel Advert Banned for Suggesting Meal Replacement Shakes Can Replace Real Food

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a social media advertisement for Huel meal replacement shakes, ruling that the campaign encouraged or condoned "irresponsible" dietary habits and made unsubstantiated health claims.

The advert, which ran as a sponsored Instagram post and YouTube pre-roll video, showed brand ambassador Spencer Matthews chatting with Huel founder Julian Hearn in a podcast-style setup. During the conversation, Matthews shared a story about an athlete he met while competing in a 260km ultramarathon who claimed to rely solely on Huel for sustenance.

Matthews said in the video that "He won it by miles, like literally just left us all in the dirt."

In the same video, Hearn described his own routine of consuming Huel for weekday breakfasts and lunches before having a traditional meal at home, adding:

"In an ideal world, you should have nutritionally complete whole food. If you could do that for every meal that would be the best solution for life. Most people either don't do that or can't have the time to do that, and therefore that's where Huel fits in the gap."

The ASA launched an investigation after receiving four complaints questioning whether the content was irresponsible and whether its implicit health claims breached the advertising code.

Although the regulator acknowledged that the video did not explicitly instruct viewers to abandon conventional food entirely, it concluded that highlighting a 100% liquid diet in the context of winning an extreme endurance race implied that total replacement of real food was "nutritionally appropriate" and "presented no barrier to achieving a high level of physical performance."

The watchdog further determined that the ultramarathon anecdote "implied a beneficial relationship between consuming Huel and the ability to sustain exceptionally high levels of physical and endurance performance", ordering that the ads must not appear again in that form.

Huel defended the advert, explaining that the post's caption which read, "Here's how our founder uses Huel. Spoiler alert it's not for every meal" was designed to correct misconceptions about how its products should be used. The Hertfordshire-based company argued that Matthews expressed disbelief during the story, treating the runner's diet as an unusual event rather than a consumer guideline.

In a formal response, the company stated that:

"The anecdote was recounted as a remarkable and unexpected occurrence, not as a representative outcome or a recommendation or instruction to consumers to replicate. At no point in the ads did either speaker suggest that consumers should adopt a 100% Huel diet."

Following the ruling, Huel confirmed it had complied with the decision and removed the campaign. A spokesperson for the company stated:

"The ad was intended to challenge the misconception that Huel should replace every meal, and we believe that is how most people understood it. We do not position Huel as a complete diet replacement or claim that it improves athletic performance. Huel is for those inconvenient meals when a whole food option isn't on the table, as part of a varied and balanced diet."

Founded in 2015 by Hearn, Huel operates in a global complete nutrition market estimated to be worth $5.9 billion (£4.4 billion), and the business is currently in the process of being acquired by French food company Danone.