Food advertising ban introduced - what's next?

The "junk food" advertising ban came into full effect on Monday. As I argue in The Critic, the whole thing is built on lies: a policy based on quack science designed to tackle a problem that has been wilfully exaggerated to reduce costs to the NHS that don't exist. And where has the opposition been?

 

It takes wilful blindness not to see that food is being dragged down the same slippery slope as tobacco, with a full advertising ban being the next step. Where is the food industry in all this? Where are the advertising platforms and TV companies? The Food and Drink Federation hasn’t put out a press release since mid-December and hasn’t tweeted for over a month. In an unbelievably tepid quote given to the BBC, it said that it was “committed to working in partnership with the government and others to help people make healthier choices” and claimed that its members’ products “now have a third of the salt and sugar and a quarter of the calories than they did ten years ago”. Whoopee. Where has that got them? With the most hostile business environment in the developed world, that’s where. And there is undoubtedly more to come. I don’t expect a trade association to call for the head of Wes Streeting but it could at least say that it is disappointed with the government and call for a ceasefire. Instead they essentially boasted about shrinkflation.

As for the broadcasters, they have spent years whipping up hysteria about food and are now sowing what they reaped. The boss of Channel 4 has said that the ad ban could cost her company £50 million a year. She should have thought about that before she commissioned all those Jamie Oliver documentaries. ITV has been no better with its scaremongering about “ultra-processed food”. These companies were perfectly placed to put out an alternative viewpoint and had years to do so, but they never did, even though it would have been justified in the name of balance.

 

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