Meeting with DCMS ABOUT THE PROPOSED BAN ON HFSS ADVERTISING

Written by NFFF President Andrew Crook

On Thursday morning I attended a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to discuss the scope of the proposed ban on advertising high fat, salt and sugar foods alongside members of the secretariat team of the British Takeaway Campaign. The government are keen to get feedback from industry on its plans to help them determine the impact of new legislation, and they were especially keen to find out where we felt the industry would feel an impact.

The proposal is to ban any advertising that the consumer did not actively seek out, so any post on Facebook would need not to contain promotion of a food deemed to be HFSS, but you could provide information about sustainability for instance or a post giving information about your business or team that did not directly promote a prohibited food item. I suggested that we need a presence in the virtual community, as we do in the physical one and losing that would have a negative effect on society. Most of my posts do not advertise my food but rather lets customers know what we are up to as a business and often perform some fundraising activity using social media.

The Consultation finishes on the 22nd of December but both the team at the DCMS and the NFFF are going to keep dialogue going throughout the process. We will also be responding formally to the consultation.

You can read the full consulation document here

The NFFF will keep members up to date with out progress throughout