Cereal manufacturers have been given fresh hope that the controversial Nutrient Profiling Model may be altered to allow more cereals - including Bran Flakes and Kellogg's Special K - to be advertised to children.

Currently 80% of cereals, including seven of the UK's top 10 bestselling brands, fail the NPM, which was developed by the Food Standards Agency for Ofcom in a bid to prevent high fat, salt and sugar products from advertising to children on TV.

Under proposals outlined by a team of nutritionists and academics, hosted by the FSA ahead of the official review, as many as 20 cereals as well as Walkers Lights Simply Salted crisps and chicken satay would escape the Ofcom ban.

Special K, the UK's second-largest cereal brand, is among the cereals that could benefit, but six of the top 10 bestselling cereal brands would still be banned, including Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Coco Pops and Cheerios.

The review follows pressure from the food industry and The Grocer's Weigh it Up! campaign, which called for a revision of the NPM's 100g ruling, as it unfairly penalises healthy products when consumed in small amounts, failed to encourage reformulation in several categories, and put unnecessary focus on individual products rather than diet as a whole.

At a workshop of 30 academics and nutritionists organised by the FSA last week, it was recommended that the 'protein cap' element of the NPM, which prohibits the majority of cereals from advertising to children, be changed.

The workshop recommended that the NPM continue to use a 100g serving, meaning that cheese, Marmite, Greek yoghurt, olive oil and raisings would continue to be excluded.

However, it felt that modification to the protein cap would reward higher fibre cereals and act as an incentive to reformulate cereal products.

Raising the protein cap by just one point would open the door for about 10 cereal products, including Weetabix Minis with Fruit and Nut and Disney Pirates, to advertise to kids.

A two-point increase would benefit Special K, while raising the threshold by three points would bring Bran Flakes back into the advertising mix.

Cereal makers said the recommendations represented progress but still failed to address the key issue of portion size.

"Tinkering around the edges of the model will not have a beneficial effect on cereal products," said Chris Wermann, communications director for Kellogg UK.

Wermann also argued that the NPM should make special allowances for dehydrated products, such as cereals, because they were consumed with liquid milk. But the workshop concluded the current system was "simple, consistent and in line with nutritional labelling".

It also advised against individually categorising products on the basis that there was no "justifiable nutritional argument" for categorisation.

The FSA stressed these were purely recommendations that would feed into the review panel's discussions at its next meeting. There will be a 12-week public consultation before the panel delivers its verdict in early 2009.