Banned Iceland palm oil Christmas ad 'too political'

Iceland's headquarters are in Deeside, Flintshire

A Christmas advert highlighting the impact of palm oil on the environment will not be shown after it was deemed "too political".

Deeside-based food firm Iceland wanted to use a Greenpeace animation telling the story of rainforest destruction and the impact on the orangutan.

But it was not approved by Clearcast, the body which assesses adverts against the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising.

Iceland managing director Richard Walker said he was "absolutely gutted".

"It's been banned, so you're not going to see it on TV," he told the BBC.

"We were told it was deemed too political, so we're absolutely gutted because we wanted to share this message far and wide and underline Iceland's commitment to remove palm oil from all of our products by the end of this year."

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Clearcast said the advert "contravened the prohibition on political advertising", which included "an advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature" - referring to its origins as a Greenpeace advert.

Iceland has posted the video on its social media, and it had been shared 200,000 times on Facebook by Friday.