A leading babyfoods manufacturer has been accused of breaching the ban on advertising formula milk for babies and was referred yesterday to the Food Standards Agency.

Two charities, Save the Children and the National Childbirth Trust, have joined forces to bring the action against SMA Nutrition after this week’s edition of OK! magazine featured the model Jordan feeding her three-week-old baby daughter with a branded bottle of its formula milk, which by law cannot be advertised.

The page next to the picture carries an advertisement for SMA’s “follow-on” milk for older babies, the only type of formula that can be advertised legally.

The two charities have also referred the case to the Advertising Standards Authority and the Trading Standards Service, saying that the feature and advertisement were a “flagrant breach of the rules”.

In the interview, Jordan, who is also known as Katie Price, praised bottle feeding. “It’s brilliant. I have 20 crates of teats and bottles. I don’t have to sterilise or heat anything, you literally take the teat out, screw it on, and throw it away. I don’t care what people say; you don’t have to breast-feed,” she said. “I don’t want a baby drinking from me.”

Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the NCT, said she was so incensed by the feature she took a copy of OK! to the FSA herself to issue the complaint.

“This is a very big issue indeed. Money couldn’t buy this sort of publicity for formula milk. There is a very good reason why advertising it is illegal, yet companies are doing whatever they can to get round it,” she said.

Ms Phipps said “follow-on” milk was invented by manufacturers as a way of getting round the advertising ban that came into force in 1995. She said that the ban should also be extended to include “follow-on” milk.

The NCT, Save the Children and Unicef have launched a campaign to ban all advertising of formula milk. They believe that it undermines the mothers who want to breast-feed and leaves them confused about how best to feed their baby. The FSA is currently reviewing the law.

Last night a spokeswoman for SMA Nutrition said: “We have no commercial relationship with Jordan. What has happened is a total coincidence. We preplan our advertising months in advance and obviously someone at the magazine thought it would be a good place to put the ad next to this feature. From our point of view that was very unfortunate as it has caused so much upset.”

However, an official statement from the company seemed to show that it was thrilled by the free publicity. “Katie Price is simply doing what any new mother does and bonding with her baby whilst feeding,” it said.

The SMA spokeswoman said that although the branded bottles featured in the photo shoot were not used by many mothers, they were available in some shops, such as Mothercare, but were not provided free to Jordan.

Peter Shackleton, of Save the Children, said research showed that fewer women breast-fed and many stopped earlier than intended as a result of formula milk advertising. “Whether or not Jordan intended to do this, she needs to understand formula sales are big business and she has let herself help them out,” he said.

“The companies want to market their products and the laws are there to protect babies. Britain really needs to do better on breast-feeding. Figures from Norway show that, where the right support is put in place, 98 per cent of mothers breast-feed and 80 per cent are still going at six months compared with 21 per cent in Britain.”

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