Porridge and granola among products to feature in UK junk food advert ban

New rules revealed that the restrictions would include ready meals, stuffed pasta, oat-based cereals, confectionery, soft drinks, ice cream and pizza, as well as savoury snacks such as crisps, pitta bread based snacks, rice cakes, pretzels, poppadoms and salted popcorn.

The regulations will see items deemed ‘unhealthy’ through a scoring system that measures energy, saturated fat, total sugar and sodium against more beneficial nutrients, banned from adverts shown on TV before 9pm from 1 October 2025.

It comes in a bid to limit obesity levels as according to NHS data, one in eight toddlers and primary school children are obese.

Ministers have said 7.2bn calories per year are expected to be removed from children’s diets in the UK, which will prevent an estimated 20,000 cases of childhood obesity,  Financial Times reported.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said: “Obesity robs our kids of the best possible start in life, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems and costs the NHS billions.”

It comes as the Labour government confirmed in September that it would bring in the ban next year, following previous delays under the Conservative government.

It marks the latest move to tackle obesity levels in the UK, with the previous government having introduced high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) regulations on 1 October 2022, which saw products deemed unhealthy removed from store entrances, gondola ends and checkouts.

Grocery Gazette