The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled in favour of Tesco on a complaint made against one of the retailer’s ‘better than half price’ ads.

The print ad included a large image of a leg of lamb, which was labelled ‘£4/kg’. Further text stated: “Enjoy Easter together: Tesco Whole Lamb leg joint 1.3k – 3.5kg… Tesco Half Leg lamb joint 0.5kg – 1.5kg £11/kg £5/kg £4/kg”. The series of prices appeared below each of the two products, with the two higher prices struck out in both cases. Small print included “Selected UK stores” and “Subject to availability.”

Tesco lamb advert

One complainant challenged the availability of the products, which were out of stock in his local store in Swansea.

But Tesco said it had previously run similar promotions on the same items and on each occasion sales data from the previous promotion was used to forecast demand and additional stock was sourced accordingly. It added it was confident there was sufficient stock to generally meet customer demand for the promotion period.

The ASA did not uphold the complaint, saying it was reasonable for Tesco to estimate demand for the advertised promotion based on a previous ‘better than half price’ promotion on the same products that had taken place over last Easter.