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Huel were founded in 2014 by Julian Hearn, with a recipe created from nutritionist James Collier (well known in the bodybuilding space). The original goal was to create a meal replacement product which met all of the recommended daily amounts of nutrients set out by the European Food Safety Authority.
The company produces a range of products, from premade milkshake-like drinks seen in supermarkets across the UK to its hugely popular Huel powder.
Since the early days, there has been a focus on sustainability – the product is vegan and the company was certified as a B Corp in 2023 (meaning it meets certain social impact requirements).
In recent years, they have expanded significantly – they launched across mainland Europe in 2016, brought on board Life Health Foods UK CEO James McMaster in 2017, and started their move into the American market in the same year. The result has been a 28% YoY increase in revenue for the company, who are now topping £180m annually.
Despite their positive record in other areas, Huel have a somewhat troubling history in regard to their advertising practices. Their primary opponent has been the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), the official regulator for advertising in the UK.
Early last year, the company saw one of their adverts banned for suggesting they could save money on their monthly food expenditure. The claim was that a month’s worth of food (if eating purely Huel meal supplements) would cost just £50. However, they failed to mention that this calculation was based on eating just one meal per day – naturally a very misleading claim to have made. This was taken particularly seriously in light of the fact that the ongoing cost of living crisis in the UK would, according to the ASA’s report, make consumers more likely to be drawn in by such claims.
More recently (just last month), a string of adverts featuring Huel ambassador Steven Bartlett (best known for Dragons’ Den and his podcast, Diary of a CEO) were also ordered to be taken down by the ASA. In multiple clips posted across social media (where Bartlett has a very significant following), the podcaster could be seen praising the latest Huel products, showing off new items and saying ‘this is the best product that Huel have released’.
However, it was not made clear Bartlett actually maintains an interest in the company – he is a non-executive director at Huel (usually a kind of part-time advisory role rather than running day-to-day operations), and (though this is not officially confirmed) may have a financial stake in the company too. The ASA said the following:
‘We considered that many consumers would interpret the ads as featuring a testimonial from Steven Bartlett about one of Huel’s products. Because the ads omitted material information about Steven Bartlett’s position as a director at Huel, we concluded they were likely to mislead.’
Both ads were ordered to be removed.
In the latest development, Huel have had another ad (counting Bartlett’s ads as two, this is now their third ban in two months) removed from circulation.
This most recent campaign (mostly focused on Instagram) featured a video of founder Julian Hearn discussing the company’s new ‘Daily Greens’ product. In the video, he states:
‘You’ve been told your whole life to eat greens and a lot of people can’t get that amount of greens into their diet. We’ve taken a very broad range of greens, so you get a product which is equally good, or in my eyes better, but you get it substantially cheaper.’
The ASA essentially viewed this as Hearn comparing both the health benefits and monetary savings of Huel against traditional fruits and vegetables – something which would require substantiated evidence to make a claim about in this way.
On the financial point, the ASA said it could not find sufficient evidence that there were indeed tangible savings from Huel versus traditional ‘greens’, thus violating comparative price claim rules.
On the health benefits, the ASA felt that claims the product improved the consumer’s quality of skin and reduced tiredness were also unsubstantiated, and so could not be included in the advertisement.
There are a number of talking points for the lawyers of the future to take into their application forms and interviews – whether aspiring barristers looking for pupillage or aspiring solicitors looking for vacation schemes and training contracts.
Thinking about the issue via the lens of practice areas (as law firms are typically divided up) is a great place to start.
Challenging the decisions of public bodies and regulators like the ASA is primarily the realm of public lawyers. Many top tier law firms (such as those in the Magic Circle) might be financial-focused (think M&A, banking, etc), but public law remains an incredibly important (and relatively academic / ‘black letter’) area of practice for many aspiring legal professionals.
Understanding the process of bringing a case/defending a case against a body like the ASA is crucial – for example how the judicial review process works if you want to appeal one of their decisions (something many law students will cover as part of their Administrative law modules).
Another practice area of note here is consumer law. This is rarely a discrete, independent practice area in a firm or chambers – but it certainly is a very tangible area of law in which clients will be asking lawyers from different teams to provide advice. This will include aspects of advertising rules and regulations (how you can and cannot legally promote certain products).
Leading on from that, while not directly linked to this story, there are strict rules around comparative advertising related to intellectual property (IP) too. For example, if Huel had compared the nutritional benefit of their powder to a rival company, rather than to ‘greens’ as a general concept.
In short, then, there are a number of points worth considering here. Also question how these ASA decisions might affect the public image of Huel as a brand – is this undermining public confidence in the company? Top lawyers will be able to consider these commercial considerations alongside the legal issues at play.
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