Gousto ultra-processed meals burger marketing campaign abstract
- Gousto launches most addictive burger marketing campaign focusing on ultra-processed meals
- Massive Secret meal designed with dietician Clare Thornton-Wooden accomplice
- Meal packs 165% every day salt and triple sugar restrict
- Whole 2,100 energy highlighting quick meals reward-system engineering claims
- Bloomsbury Coverage Lab estimates £67bn annual UK well being prices
Extremely-processed meals proceed to court docket controversy, with customers more and more demanding meals with much less processing.
Critics say that UPFs could be addictive, and are extra probably than their much less processed counterparts to be excessive in unhealthy components. Defenders say that the healthiness of a product must be assessed based mostly on its components, not stage of processing.
Now, anti-UPF criticism has come from a brand new supply: meal equipment supplier Gousto has created ‘the UK’s most addictive burger’, aiming to point out, within the firm’s view, simply how unhealthy UPFs could be.
Health persona Joe Wicks, a distinguished critic of UPFs, has invested in Gousto up to now. Wicks launched the ‘killer’ protein bar final yr as a part of a tie-in together with his documentary Joe Wicks: Licensed to Kill. The bar was filled with quite a few legally compliant components as a way to satirise the alleged unhealthiness of health merchandise.
‘Most addictive burger’ designed
Gousto’s burger meal, referred to as The Massive Secret, was created in partnership with dietician Clare Thornton-Wooden. The “dramatised” meal is designed to criticise the well being properties of quick meals within the UK.
It seems regular – nothing however a bacon cheeseburger, a milkshake and fries – however it has been rigorously designed to be addictive.
It comprises 165% of the UK’s every day really helpful salt consumption, greater than 3 times the every day sugar restrict and enormous portions of saturated fats besides.
Additionally learn → Opinion: Health guru Joe Wicks’ anti-UPF rhetoric hurts greater than his Killer bar
In complete, the meal is 2,100 energy – greater than the UK’s every day really helpful consumption for girls and just below that for males.
The best way the meal’s components are “layered collectively”, says Thornton-Wooden, “could make moderation a lot more durable – notably for these attempting to eat extra healthily. The problem isn’t the person, it’s the meals setting they’re navigating.”
Thornton-Wooden was tasked by Gousto to create the UK’s most addictive burger, as a way to ‘hijack the mind’s reward system.’
The burger isn’t obtainable to the general public, however as an alternative created to spotlight the well being impression of quick meals and ultra-processed meals within the UK weight loss plan.
Quick meals is, in keeping with Gousto, “designed to drive cravings and overconsumption“.
In accordance with analysis for Gousto carried out by the Bloomsbury Coverage Lab, it prices the UK well being system round £67bn a yr by means of related situations similar to weight problems, diabetes, and heart problems.

