Supermarket giant Tesco has been forced to withdraw a TV advertisement by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) after it was deemed to be misleading. The advert, for butcher’s choice sausages, showed pigs outdoors in a field, in a haybarn and following a farmer down a track. image expired

However, following complaints, the ASA decided the advert was misleading as, despite Tesco’s protestations that ‘outdoor reared’ was an industry recognised term and pigs were also shown indoors, the sausages in question are made from a mixture of indoor-bred and outdoor-reared pigs, which are then finished indoors. The ASA said the advert was therefore misleading and that an open door in the barn featured in the advert gave an illusion of free access to the outdoors, which the pigs do not have.

Tesco objected that the farm shown in the advert was a supplier for the product, but the ASA upheld the complaints and banned the advert. It noted that in all scenes the pigs were shown to be in a spacious and free environment with access to the outdoors, which was not the case.

The Watchdog concluded, "The pigs were shown wandering unrestricted outside and, within the indoor barn scene, the barn door was shown to be open and the pigs' movement unrestricted. [Viewers were] likely to interpret the ad to mean that the pigs … were reared in an unrestricted environment and had access to outdoor pasture. Since we understood that was not the case, we concluded that the ad was misleading."

The Soil Association welcomed the decision, its ‘Not in my banger’ campaign, launched in opposition to proposals for a controversial mega-farm which would house 25,000 pigs at Foston in Derbyshire,  has recently expanded to provide a voice for organic principles in pig farming. The group said it will continue to campaign against what it describes as "a dramatic escalation of industrial pig farming in the UK."