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12 June 2026 / Nick Smallwood , Paul Hilder
Issue: 8165 / Categories: Features , Food law , Marketing , Health , Regulatory
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Pastries bad, kebabs ok?

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Nick Smallwood & Paul Hilder find a mixed platter in the Advertising Standards Agency’s first rulings on junk food ads

A Financial Times headline caught our eye recently: Pastries, but not kebabs, fall foul of UK junk food advertising ban. Watchdog bans Lidl pastry advertisement while items from kebab chain are cleared.

At that point, most readers would (sensibly) shrug philosophically and carry on with their day. What a regulatory lawyer would do is dive down a legislative rabbit hole to provide a more thorough and satisfying explanation!

  1. Policy. Restrict the advertising of junk food.
  2. Intended outcome. Reduce consumption of junk food and thereby improve public health.
  3. Legal requirement. Define ‘junk food’—the policy only works if you can say with certainty what kind of food and drink is subject to the advertising restriction (which prohibits paid-for online advertising and most TV advertising before the 9pm watershed).

A legislative rabbit hole

Rather than the pejorative ‘junk food’, the applicable law uses the more neutral phrase

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