Warburtons has come under fire for claiming to be ‘London’s biggest bakers’. The Bolton-based bakery business was today rapped by the advertising Standards Agency (ASA) after complaints from the owners of Hovis and Kingsmills.
The complaints from Premier Food Groups and Allied Bakeries were made while Premier Foods still owned the Hovis brand, while Allied Bakeries is the owner of the Kingsmill brand.
Warburtons claimed its statistics were verified by a global independent market research company and claimed Warburtons had the biggest market share in the capital, with Hovis and Allied Bakeries trailing in second place.
“They said that they used 12-week and 52-week data because it monitored sales over a longer period of time, therefore providing a stable view of the market,” said the ASA report.
However, the ASA decided that Hovis had provided its own data from its own independent market research sources, which contradicted Warburtons’ data.
The ASA also noted, among other details, that consumers would interpret the word “bakers” to include a retailer that sold freshly baked products and “would not interpret it to mean a retailer that exclusively offered wrapped bakery products”.
In addition, Warburtons did not verify the source of the data in the advertisment which is now banned and must not appear in its current form again.
