Fruits and vegetables are the least advertised foods

In 2021, €477 million were invested in advertising food and beverages, a figure that does not include the distribution and catering sector, which allocated a further €455.8 million to advertising. This figure exceeds money spent on promoting cars, banks, beauty products, fashion items, and phone companies.

The few fresh produce items that are publicised include bananas from the Canary Islands, the Fashion watermelon, strawberries from Palos or Malaga avocados from Trops. Part of the reason is the high cost of TV advertising. The Association for the Promotion of the Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables 5 a day, which brings together the majority of producers and distributors, said: “The economic capacity of fruit and vegetable producing companies is significantly limited. This limits our ability to compete for the space available for advertising in the media.”

The survey also found that only 8% of the food advertisements seen by children on television are for foods with a fully healthy nutritional profile, while 45% promote products with a negative or very  negative nutritional profile. For this reason, the organisation proposes minimum quotas be established for fruit and vegetable advertisements on children’s television channels, and that economic incentives be given to the general media to ensure a certain percentage of advertisements promote fruits and vegetables.