Why do misleading images of farmed animals persist in advertising?
Green pastures. A herd of cows mooing in the distance. The British morning sunlight streams in. UK meat and dairy producers often paint the narrative of the idyllic outdoor scenery in which their farmed animals are supposedly raised. In fact, our Food Chain Misinformation Report’s investigation into how 47 producers and meat processors depict farmed animals found that over 84% used imagery of animals living outdoors.
Unfortunately, the reality is very different.
Approximately 85% of UK farmed animals are kept in industrial farms.
95% of meat chickens are reared in large, closed buildings with a maximum stocking density that allows less than the size of an A4 sheet of paper per chicken.
Farmed salmon (as opposed to wild caught) makes up over 92% of salmon sold in the UK retail by value.
Further, around 60% of UK breeding sows are kept indoors.
So, why do advertisements consistently tell us a different story - and are they allowed to?
In the UK, advertisements are regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”). The ASA assesses complaints against the relevant provisions of the UK Code of British Advertising (BCAP Code) and will uphold a complaint where it concludes that the advertisement breaches those rules.
Under section 3.1 of the BCAP Code, advertisements must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. The ASA will also consider the effect of an advertisement from the point of view of the average consumer, which is defined as reasonably well-informed, observant, and circumspect (p.153).
The threshold for the ASA to uphold a complaint that an advertisement is misleading is therefore whether the advertisement is likely to materially mislead the reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect consumer.
The high threshold of ‘materially misleading’
In a 2017 Aldi advertisement, a man scuba diving in water reads a newspaper while surrounded by fish swimming. The diver then states ‘How's this for amazing? Aldi's specially selected Scottish Salmon is RSPCA assured’.
Five complaints were lodged to the ASA regarding the advertisement, arguing that it misleadingly implied that Aldi’s salmon were wild caught, not farmed.
Deciding not to uphold the complaint, the ASA determined that the advertisement was not directly misleading for various reasons, including that:
it did not contain any express claims regarding the provenance of Aldi’s salmon;
it was humorous and fantastical, meaning viewers would be less likely to believe the scene equated to a real-life scenario;
it was unclear whether the scuba diver was in a river, the sea, a lake, or an artificial body of water; and
given that the scuba-diver was not catching fish, the average viewer was unlikely to interpret it as meaning that Aldi’s salmon were caught in the wild.
While ALDI’s imagery may have been suggestive and conducive of an association with wild-caught salmon, it was not considered sufficiently direct or explicit to constitute a misleading claim.
Inconsistent decisions
In the courts, judicial decision-making is ordinarily guided by the doctrine of precedent. Under this doctrine the courts follow the binding decisions of previous courts when deciding cases involving similar legal issues. However, ASA decision-making panels are not bound by precedent. As a result, each case is decided on its own facts, without reference to previous decisions made by ASA panels.
The nature of this adjudicative process has the effect of compromising legal consistency and certainty in the regulation of advertisements. For example, variations in the ASA’s interpretation of how ‘the average consumer’ may perceive various claims regarding the welfare of farmed animals have been shown to have the potential to give rise to inconsistencies in how the ASA makes its decisions.
In Waitrose Ltd, 20 October 2010, the ASA upheld complaints against a press ad which described pigs as 'outdoor bred' because the pigs used to produce the product did not spend the duration of their lives outdoors. Even though the pigs were bred outside, the ASA considered that the average consumer would not be aware of the distinction between ‘outdoor bred’ and ‘outdoor reared’ pigs and therefore determined that the claim was misleading.
While in that case the ASA upheld the complaint because it considered the average consumer would be unaware of the distinction between the farming terms ‘outdoor bred’ and ‘outdoor reared’, in a 2021 ruling, the ASA did not uphold a complaint brought by PETA against Noble Foods (the producer of The Happy Egg Co) in part because it disagreed with PETA that the average consumer would interpret the statements, ‘all of our eggs exceed free-range standards’ and ‘Free Range and Happy’, to give an impression that their hens were subject to overall high welfare standards.
PETA argued that the advertisement conveyed the impression that hens were able to stretch, roam, forage, dust, bathe and have easy access to green grass and freedom from overcrowding and stress. PETA’s complaint was that such an impression would be misleading, given that video footage showed that a large number of hens at the alleged farms were confined in small spaces in sheds, were missing feathers and were living in faeces among other dead hens.
Nevertheless, despite accepting that at least one of the farms was found to be in breach of RSPCA Assured standards, the ASA still did not uphold the complaint. This was partially because the ASA determined that ‘consumers were likely to understand’ that the allegedly misleading claims were made ‘in context’. That is, the ASA believed that consumers would understand that the claims signified that the producer was meeting certain requirements for hen access to outdoor space and greenery, as opposed to guaranteeing generally positive welfare conditions for hens. This finding appears to reflect a more generous understanding of the average consumer’s understanding than was found in the aforementioned Waitrose case.
Gaps in the monitoring of farmed animals’ welfare
Another complaint to the ASA regarded an allegation that the depiction of cows grazing in green pastures was misleading because it did not reflect the typical experience of UK cows.
On 13 May 2026, the ASA handed down its ruling on the complaint, which was made by TV presenter Chris Packham, against an advertisement by the Agriculture and Horticultural Development Board. In coming to their decision in relation to this issue, the ASA heavily relied on DEFRA’s Cattle Farm Practices Survey from April 2019 (the latest available). Given that the survey showed that 87% of cattle farms in the UK use a mix of housed and grazing systems, the ASA determined that ‘most cattle were not housed all year and most had some access to an outdoor environment’ and so the advertisement imagery ‘was unlikely to mislead’ the average consumer.
Looking a little closer at the survey methodology, however, a few limitations arise:
Firstly, the statistics derive from a ‘voluntary postal survey’ completed by farmers themselves, rather than by any independent regulator.
Secondly, the survey methodology does not ask farmers to identify how frequently cattle they classify as being kept in ‘mixed’ housing are actually allowed to graze outdoors. As a result, farmers who only very rarely let their cows outside could well fall into the ‘mixed’ farming category.
Thirdly, the data from the survey was seven years old at the time of the ruling.
More generally, our Enforcement Problem Report highlights the shocking shortcomings of the systems in place to protect and monitor animal welfare legislation. For example, it found that in 2024 only 2.2% of farms received inspections for non-compliance with animal protection law. That means that the rates of non-compliance with animal welfare law on 97.8% of farms are not even known. This in turn constrains the ASA’s ability to scrutinise depictions of farmed animals, as gaps in data collection by regulatory bodies leave the reality of their living conditions inadequately brought to light.
Takeaways
The ASA’s high threshold of ‘materially misleading’, its lack of adherence to the rule of binding precedent and gaps in the monitoring of farmed animal welfare in the UK may all serve to limit the ASA’s ability to regulate advertisements depicting how farmed animals live effectively.
As a result of these issues, consumers continue to receive an incomplete and idealised impression of the lives of farmed animals on television, with the reality remaining behind closed doors.
For more information on Food Chain Misinformation you can read our report here.
