Tesco has had to withdraw an advertisement about its in-store bakeries after a complaint by the Real Bread Campaign was upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The ASA upheld the complaint that a magazine advertisement for Tesco’s in-store bakeries breached the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code’s clause on truthfulness, meaning the advert must not appear again in its current form.

The main text in the advertisement read: "Fresh bread. Baked from scratch in our in store bakery. Using 100% British flour. So every single loaf is genuinely British... Born and bread." However, Tesco only bakes loaves from scratch in 504 of its 2,362 UK stores, according to figures supplied by the supermarket in response to the complaint.

The smallprint on the ad read: "Subject to availability. Selected UK stores. British flour used in all products that are baked from scratch in-store as stickered in pack. French baguettes, batons and products not baked from scratch excluded."

The Real Bread Campaign challenged whether, firstly, the advertisement was misleading, as Tesco does not bake bread from scratch in all of its in-store bakeries and, secondly, whether the advert was misleading because the claim "Baked from scratch in our in-store bakery. Using 100% British flour" did not apply to all loaves and they believed the smallprint contradicted, rather than clarified, the headline claim.

The ASA upheld the first complaint on the grounds that the CAP Code clause 7.1 (Truthful-ness) had been breached. According to the ASA: "The advertisment implied that all Tesco stores with a bakery facility baked bread from scratch, which was true of only a limited number of stores. We concluded the ad was likely to mislead."

In regards to the second complaint, the ASA investigated the advert under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

A spokesperson for Tesco said, "The ads have been changed in accordance with the ruling."

The full complaint, and the ASA adjudication can be found at: www.realbreadcampaign.org.

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