Lavazza and Dualit coffee ads banned over ‘misleading' claims

Independent

30-04-2025

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned advertisements for Lavazza and Dualit coffee products over misleading claims about their compostability. The ads suggested that the products could be composted at home, which the ASA deemed inaccurate.
The Lavazza ad, promoting their Eco Caps coffee pods, highlighted a "coffee shop taste in compostable capsules for your home".
This phrasing, the ASA ruled, implied that the pods could be composted domestically, when they actually require industrial composting facilities. Similarly, a Dualit ad featuring a coffee bag with a green leaf logo and the text "100% compostable" fell foul of the advertising watchdog.
The ASA concluded that the ad implied home compostability, despite the small print clarifying that industrial composting was necessary. Both companies have been instructed to ensure future advertising avoids this misleading implication.
Similarly, the ad for 'Dualit's compostable coffee bags' implied that the pouches could be composted domestically when this was not the case.
Lavazza told the ASA that consumers would understand 'compostable' to mean that a product was made of compostable material, and not necessarily that it was compostable domestically.
The coffee giant said it was not its intention for consumers to understand the ad as suggesting the capsules were home compostable, adding that its website stated that they were certified for industrial composting.
The ASA said Lavazza's and Dualit's capsules had been certified to the European Standard EN13432, meaning they was designed to break down within an industrial compost and would not therefore necessarily breakdown within a domestic compost.
Furthermore, such a product could take longer to break down fully in a domestic compost, if at all, and could leave toxic matter, while compostable plastics placed into recycling collections could contaminate them, the ASA added.
Some councils recommended that compostable plastics be placed in a waste bin.
Regarding Lavazza, the ASA said: 'The claim 'compostable capsules' implied the capsules, which would typically be used within the home, could be composted in a home composter, but as they were not intended to be placed there, we considered the claim was likely to mislead.'
Dualit said its coffee bags had been certified as industrially compostable and were made from polylactic acid, a material derived from sugars extracted from plants and ground coffee.
It also said consumers would interpret the claim 'compostable' to mean the bags were made from a compostable material, and would not assume they were home compostable.
But the ASA said: 'The ad suggested the bags could be composted in a location that they were not designed for.
'Also, it did not make clear how consumers should dispose of the product correctly in order to have the claimed effect, which we considered was material information that should have been included in the ad.
'We concluded the ad was therefore likely to mislead.'
The ASA added: 'We know that when it comes to making purchasing decisions, the public are keen to make choices with the environment in mind.
'It's important that brands are clear about how easy it is to dispose of products in an environmentally friendly way, so people aren't misled.'
Lavazza said: 'We disagreed with the ASA that 'compostable' would be interpreted as 'home compostable' – home composting systems are not common in the UK.
'Nevertheless, transparency and building a trustful relationship with consumers are fundamental principles for Lavazza, so we immediately amended the advertisement in good faith upon the ASA's notification in June 2024 and it has now been offline for nearly 10 months.'