Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Patisserie Valerie Production Ltd t/a Patisserie Valerie and Amazon Europe Core Sarl (Amazon)
Where: United Kingdom
When: 10 June 2026 and 24 June 2026
Law stated as at: 7 July 2026
What happened
Following the ASA’s first rulings, published in April of this year, under the “less healthy” food and drink (LHFD) advertising restrictions, two further ASA rulings demonstrate that these restrictions continue to be subject to high scrutiny from the ASA and the public.
The ruling against Patisserie Valerie, regarding seven paid-for search ads for Patisserie Valerie’s cakes, gave the ASA an opportunity to apply the exemption for small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) under the LHFD rules.
The Advertising (Less Healthy Food Definitions and Exemptions) Regulations 2024 define a food or drink SME as an organisation that, during a financial year, carries on one or more businesses which involve or are associated with the manufacture or sale of food and drink and, on the first day of the relevant financial year, employs fewer than 250 people for the purposes of those businesses. For the purposes of determining the number of employees, franchise businesses, international staff and members of staff of an “associated company” of the business who also work for the purposes of the business are taken into account. “Associated” means a company which is a parent undertaking or a subsidiary undertaking of the company which owns the business.
The exemption applies where the organisation paying for the ad was an SME at the time the payment was made. Based on the evidence provided, the ASA considered that Patisserie Valerie likely paid for the ads at the beginning of 2026 and therefore looked at its headcount on 1 January 2026, as the first day of the financial year in which the ads were paid for.
In determining Patisserie Valerie’s employee headcount, the ASA looked at the staff employed by the wider corporate group, including its franchise operations, parent company and holding, licensing and franchise management subsidiaries. The ASA also took into consideration two employees of another company, Bakers + Baristas, who spent approximately 50% of their time providing services to Patisserie Valerie. Beyond these two employees, the ASA concluded that the other employees of Bakers + Baristas did not need to be included in Patisserie Valerie’s headcount because the companies operated as separate brands and sat in separate portfolio businesses, despite both being controlled by the same entity and having common shareholders and shared directors.
As such, the ASA concluded that Bakers + Baristas was not an “associated company”. Ultimately, the ASA understood from the evidence provided that Patisserie Valerie employed 123 people directly and that the six franchised stores had a total of 69 staff. The ASA concluded that the overall applicable headcount of Patisserie Valerie totalled 194 employees and therefore the SME exemption applied, bringing the ads outside the LHFD advertising restrictions and preventing them from breaching the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code).
The second ruling related to a paid-for ad on social media for Amazon which featured Lurpak butter, Aunt Bessie’s Yorkshire puddings and a large Cadbury creme egg Easter egg. The ASA considered that consumers could reasonably be expected to identify that the ad, which featured the text “Your big Easter grocery shops. All delivered same-day amazon fresh”, was for both Amazon’s fresh delivery service and the three specific products depicted.
While the Lurpak butter and Yorkshire puddings did not fall within scope of the LHFD rules, the Easter egg was classified as a product high in fat, sugar or salt according to the Department of Health and Social Care’s Nutrient Profiling Technical Guidance and fell into the “confectionery” category under the regulations. The ASA therefore concluded that the ad advertised an identifiable “less healthy” item in breach of the LHFD rules and rule 15.19 of the CAP Code relating to placement of LHFD product advertisements online.
Why this matters
The Patisserie Valerie ruling confirms that, in addition to rigorously assessing the nutritional status and category of every identifiable product featured in in-scope ads, the ASA is prepared to conduct a thorough entity-by-entity analysis of a corporate group’s employee headcount when considering the SME exemption.
Both rulings reinforce the value of detailed compliance covering any individual product identifiable in an in-scope ad and, if seeking to rely on the SME exemption, of their corporate structure and associated companies before authorising in-scope online and TV ads.
