Pork advert banned for misleading claims

Complaints from animal campaign groups suggested that not all pigs in Britain are treated with the highest standards. The poster in question was headed 'Pork: A guide to the cuts' and featured an illustration of a pig in the style of a butcher's diagram showing different cuts of pork. Instead of naming the cuts of meat the diagram was labelled '1.Cut in income, 2.Cut in jobs, 3.Cut in farms, 4.Cut in quality and 5.Cut in consumer choice'. Text around the diagram stated: 'British pig farms have very high welfare standards, assured by the Quality Standard Mark. And well cared-for animals mean better quality meat ... Help the pig farmers. Sign our petition for fairer prices at pigsareworthit.com and always look for the Pork Quality Standard Mark.' BPEX said it did not accept that the statement 'British pig farms have very high welfare standards' meant that the standard of pig welfare was very high, adding that the statement related only to the welfare criteria that are controlled by Quality Standard Mark (QSM) standards. They said they did not see very high welfare in pigs as a natural interpretation of the statement. But the Advertising Standards Authority said it considered the evidence sent by the BPEX: "We noted their assertion that the claim "British pig farms have very high welfare standards, assured by the Quality Standard Mark" did not imply the welfare of pigs was in itself very high, but would be understood by readers to mean that the welfare standards were themselves very high. "Because there was no clear guidance as to how to measure pig welfare across Europe, and because there was sufficient doubt as to whether the standard of welfare of pigs on all farms that signed up to the QSM could be described as very high, we concluded the ad was misleading."