Tesco has been rapped by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for an advert claiming its British Iceberg lettuce goes from farm to store within 24 hours.
The text in the national press advert read: “So, one day it’s in the field. The next it’s in your salad” but in the small print it said: “Timings may on occasion vary due to unforeseen circumstances/events. Subject to availability.”
Sainsbury’s challenged whether the advert misleadingly implied the product was generally available in store within 24 hours of picking.
Tesco said on a normal day the lettuce was cooled on the farm between 8am and midday, delivered to the depot by 6pm and arrived at stores by 5am the next day.
The supermarket admitted that due to the time it takes to pick an entire field of lettuces not all of the batch would reach stores within 24 hours of being pulled from the ground. But it said the time it was picked was not relevant to the claims made in the advert.
The ASA said Tesco’s response was that, in the context of the advert as a whole, most consumers would interpret that lettuce was transported from the field to a customer’s salad quickly.
“Tesco believed the claim “one day it’s in the field. The next it’s in your salad” was mere puffery, which did not require objective substantiation,” the ASA said.
“They said the average consumer would be aware that only the time between farm and store was controlled by Tesco's and that it was for a consumer to decide when to consume the product.”
The ASA ruled the transportation of lettuces from field to stores was under Tesco’s control and that the advert was misleading.
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