Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have come under fire for showing adverts for tobacco items in their shops that Trading Standards claim are against the law.

Posters and video screens are being used to advertise devices that deliver nicotine via heating tobacco instead of burning it , the BBC reported.

The grocery giants said they understand the laws banning tobacco adverts do not apply to the products which are advertised in their stores.

Sainsbury’s and Morrisons have been seen promoting iQos, a product using an electric current to heat tobacco, with some of the adverts seen on flashing screens.

The BBC also reported sightings of adverts for a similar product, called Ploom, in Morrisons.

The Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) said the promotions were “prohibited” under the 2002 law banning tobacco adverts.

However, it said the issue had never been tested in court, so it could not conclusively determine that their advertisement was illegal.

Speaking to the BBC, CTSI lead officer for tobacco and vaping Kate Pike said: “The only people who can definitively test it are the courts. Now the courts are chocka. Trading Standards is very stretched, and I think that’s probably the reason why you’re seeing more and more of these ads.

“It’s taking the mick, is my view.”

Although heated tobacco is less harmful than cigarettes, experts say it is likely more harmful than vapes, as well as less effective at helping smokers quit, the BBC reported.

Former health minister Steve Brine wrote to the firm producing iQos, Philip Morris International (PMI), in 2018, saying advertising of its devices was “prohibited” and calling for it to “desist from such promotion in the future”.

The minister wrote to the company two months later to thank them for “agreeing to comply with our request to stop advertising and promoting the iQos device”.

However, PMI says it agreed to suspend its advertising, rather than stop.

Japan Tobacco International (JTI), the company behind Ploom, said the 2002 law defined a tobacco item as something that was “smoked, sniffed, sucked or chewed,” and since heated tobacco devices did not produce smoke, they were not covered by the definition.

Morrisons referenced the same argument, saying: “On that basis, we are comfortable that it is legal for heated tobacco products to be advertised in store”.

Likewise, Sainsbury’s said its promotions were “in line with current tobacco legislation”.

In 2021, PMI shut down all of its 16 IQOS stores in the UK, two years after revealing expansion plans for the high street chain.

The plans, set out before the pandemic, consisted of opening hundreds of IQOS stores across the country.

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