Other restricted businesses: High Fat Sugar Salt Food and Beverage Ads

We restrict certain kinds of businesses from advertising with us to prevent users from being exploited, even if individual businesses appear to comply with our other policies. Based on our own continuous reviews, and feedback from users, regulators, and consumer protection authorities, we occasionally identify products or services that are prone to abuse. If we feel that certain kinds of businesses pose an unreasonable risk to user safety or user experience, then we may limit or stop related ads from running.

Learn more about the Other restricted businesses policy.

We restrict the promotion of High Fat Sugar Salt (HFSS) Food and Beverage (F&B) in the UK and EU on the Google Display Network and YouTube.

We support responsible advertising of food and beverages. HFSS F&B ads and destination sites are allowed if they comply with the policies below and don’t target minors. The information reflected in this policy is not intended to be legal advice and we expect all advertisers to comply with the local laws for any region their ads target, including local requirements that may differ from this HFSS F&B policy.

We consider ads to be promoting the sale of HFSS products when one or more HFSS food item, beverage, or meal is promoted on the ad creative (text, imagery, audio and/or video) or destination site.

Advertisers are required to self-declare that they are using an account to run HFSS F&B campaigns. In order to self-declare, please use the form here. This policy applies to all HFSS F&B ads serving in the UK and EU on the Google Display Network and Youtube. Ads within accounts that are self-declared as HFSS F&B and have received the HFSS label will only serve to users with a declared age of 18 and above.

• Examples (non-exhaustive): Sweetened beverages, energy drinks, doughnuts, cakes, sweet biscuits, chocolate nut spreads, trail mix or nut bar with chocolate or candy, milkshakes, pork and beef sausage, bacon, pizza, hamburger meals with fries, candy, chocolate, sweets, butter, salt, caloric sweeteners, coconut oil.

• Examples of ads outside the scope of this policy (non-exhaustive):
  • Ads that promote non-HFSS F&B such as 100% juice, plain fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, low or non-fat plain milk, dry beans and lentils, plain nuts and seeds, and any other food or beverage with no added fat, sugar, salt, or sweeteners
  • Ads for restaurant delivery services or restaurant location/review websites that do not include text, imagery, audio, and/or video of HFSS F&B
  • Ads that feature HFSS F&B products but promote a product or service not related to F&B, such as ads for a baking show, tourism, or kitchen cleaning supplies
  • Ads that feature HFSS F&B products but promote a PSA messaging on healthy diets and eating

Options to fix ad violations

Create a separate account

If you'd like to advertise products that contain HFSS, Google requires that you self-declare that your account is in scope for HFSS F&B, and all the creatives within that account will be subject to the HFSS F&B policy restrictions. If you want only a subset of ads to be restricted, you're required to create a separate account and self-declare that account for HFSS F&B.

Appeal policy decision

If you believe your ads have incorrectly been labeled, submit an appeal with nutritional information (example, a table of nutrition facts) to confirm that the ads are out of scope of HFSS F&B. Visit the help page and ensure that all products you're advertising through your ads and destination sites are within the nutrient guidelines.

Google HFSS F&B Nutritional Profile

Nutrient levels are applied on a 100-gram and per serving basis for global applicability and to reflect common labeled serving sizes and calorie levels for meal and meal components. If the serving size of your advertised food or beverage does not closely match the listed serving size (LSS), please evaluate your product using the per 100-gram criteria.