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Agencies A to ZSince 5 January 2026, paid online ads for identifiable less healthy food are banned and TV ads face a 9pm watershed. Here is the law, the exemptions and the first ASA rulings.
Last verified 4 September 2026. Since 5 January 2026 it has been unlawful to pay for an online ad for an identifiable less healthy food or drink product at any time, or to run one on TV or on-demand services between 5.30am and 9pm. Eight months in, the ASA has ruled on M&M’s characters, a KitKat cream puff, a doughnut at an airport and a Thorntons egg, and most cases have turned on one word: identifiable.
The restrictions sit in the Communications Act 2003, inserted by the Health and Care Act 2022. They were first due in January 2023, were pushed to 1 October 2025, and on 22 May 2025 the public health minister Ashley Dalton delayed them to 5 January 2026 so that a statutory brand exemption could be written. The industry agreed to comply voluntarily from 1 October 2025 anyway.
Three instruments do the detailed work. The Advertising (Less Healthy Food Definitions and Exemptions) Regulations 2024 define the products and the SME exemption. The Brand Advertising Exemption Regulations 2025, made on 9 September 2025 and in force from 31 October 2025, define brand advertising. CAP and BCAP wrote the rules into the codes in a regulatory statement on 4 December 2025 and published implementation guidance the next day.
The government’s case, when the regulations progressed on 3 December 2024, was that they would remove 7.2 billion calories a year from children’s diets and prevent around 20,000 cases of childhood obesity.
The online rule catches paid social, paid search, display, promoted listings and paid influencer content. It does not catch a brand’s own website, app or organic posts, because nobody is paying for placement. The existing HFSS rules on targeting children still apply everywhere else.
A product is “less healthy” only if it passes a two-stage test: it must fall into one of 13 categories in the schedule to the 2024 Regulations, and it must score 4 or more points as a food, or 1 or more as a drink, under the 2004 to 2005 nutrient profiling model. The categories are added-sugar soft drinks; savoury snacks; breakfast cereals; confectionery; ice cream; cakes; sweet biscuits and cereal bars; morning goods; desserts; sweetened yoghurt; pizza; chips and similar potato products; and ready meals, sauced, breaded or battered items and sandwiches.
Both stages matter. A pizza that scores 3 is not restricted, which is why Domino’s, Papa John’s and Uber Eats have all advertised pizzas and a Whopper without breaching. Butter and Yorkshire puddings are in no category at all, which is why Amazon Fresh’s Easter ad was fine until the creme egg.
The Act says a product is identifiable “if persons in the UK (or any part of the UK) could reasonably be expected to be able to identify the advertisement as being for that product”. That is an average-consumer test, judged on the whole ad, weighing where the product sits in frame, how long it appears and how attention is drawn to it.
Incidental appearances pass. On the Beach’s TV ad showed a boy eating a chocolate ring doughnut at an airport and was cleared on 15 April 2026 because viewers would see an ad for lounge access, not for a doughnut.
An ad that promotes a brand, including the brand of a range of products, is exempt. It loses the exemption if it depicts a specific less healthy product, and “depict” is defined widely: by name, text, imagery, logo, audio cue, jingle, brand character or any combination.
Two carve-outs matter for legacy brands. A product name may appear inside a company or range logo if the company or range was established and held that name before 16 July 2025. And a realistic image of food is only a depiction if it is visually indistinguishable from a specific less healthy product, which is why Thorntons’ generic chocolate egg was cleared on 19 August 2026 when none of its seven real eggs matched it.
Brand characters get no such latitude. On 8 July 2026 the ASA upheld a complaint against Mars Wrigley over a paid Instagram ad showing two M&M’s characters and no product. The yellow character’s oval shape identified Peanut M&M’s, so the ad was for a specific less healthy product and the exemption fell away.
Food and drink businesses that employed fewer than 250 people on the first day of the UK financial year are exempt from all three rules, counting international and franchisee staff. Bubbleology, Patisserie Valerie and Monty Bojangles have all been cleared on that basis. Morley’s Woking, a franchisee, lost on 8 July 2026 because the network as a whole employed more than 250, and the shop had no nutrient profile calculations for its burgers and wings.
The ASA is the frontline regulator; Ofcom is the statutory authority, holds backstop powers and can take a referral. Of the 20 most recent rulings on the ASA’s site, eight have gone against the advertiser.
The first batch, on 15 April 2026, set the tone. Lidl Northern Ireland lost over an Instagram post by the influencer Emma Kearney tasting a Pain Suisse and a cheese pretzel; Lidl argued it was brand-led, but close-ups and verbal description made the Pain Suisse the product advertised. Iceland lost over Daily Mail banners showing Pringles and Haribo with prices.
Then came the chains. KFC was cleared on 8 July 2026 after showing the Fillet Burger, Mini Fillets and Pepsi Max were all non-HFSS. Domino’s was cleared the same day for social ads showing a non-HFSS Vegi Supreme, then lost on 22 July over Cheeky Little Pizza TV, VOD and YouTube ads: the Sausage and Bacon variant was HFSS, and Domino’s admitted its third-party nutrient data had been wrong. It was the first upheld TV ruling under rule 32.21.
McDonald’s was cleared on 22 July for a pre-9pm McDelivery TV ad that named Chicken McNuggets, a McCrispy and a McChicken Sandwich without showing food, because none of the three is HFSS. On 5 August a Costcutter and Mondelez “Spin to Win” Instagram ad passed as brand advertising, but the landing page it drove to, full of Creme Egg and Mini Eggs packs, was ruled a paid ad for identifiable products. On 12 August YO! Sushi lost for an Instagram ad with no food in it, because “Made with KitKat cream puff” named a specific HFSS menu item.
Large advertisers, platforms and broadcasters committed to comply from 1 October 2025 and moved product work to post-9pm TV, out of home, cinema, audio and their own channels. Food brands had already increased out-of-home spend by 28% between 2021 and 2024. Coca-Cola’s Christmas work can run pre-watershed by staying brand-only or featuring Zero and Diet, which are not in scope.
The creative response has been to remove the product and keep the brand. The Grocer reported in December 2025 that Heinz Beanz billboards by Wieden+Kennedy London carried a product close-up and the line “It Has To Be Toast” with no logo or pack, and noted that Cadbury’s Gorilla is compliant until its final seconds.
For a non-SME advertiser: any paid online ad, at any hour, that a UK consumer would recognise as being for a specific HFSS product; the same ad on Ofcom-regulated TV or on-demand services between 5.30am and 9pm; brand characters that personify a specific product; and paid-for landing pages that show identifiable products.
Influencer content is the sharpest edge, because a paid partnership is an ad wherever the creator posts it, and product close-ups defeat a “brand-led” argument. Collaborations that name a partner product, as YO! Sushi found, are product ads. Nutrient data must be right, because the ASA will ask for it and Domino’s lost on a spreadsheet error.
Franchisors and franchisees should assume the whole network’s headcount counts.
No. It is a ban on paid online ads and a 9pm watershed for TV and on-demand, for identifiable less healthy products, by businesses with 250 or more employees. Out of home, print, cinema, radio and post-9pm TV are unaffected.
Yes. Brand advertising is exempt, and a product name inside a company or range logo is allowed if the name was in use before 16 July 2025.
No. Rule 15.19 applies to advertising you pay to place. Organic posts on your own channels and your own site or app are outside it, although the pre-existing HFSS rules on targeting children still apply.
For the wider framework, see our guide to UK advertising rules. For the disclosure rules that sit alongside these for creator content, see our guide to influencer advertising rules in the UK.
He plans, buys and reviews advertising for a living, and helps score campaigns on the site against the same five Crown Score criteria alongside other authors and contributors.
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