Marketing Food and Restaurants Through Influencers: What Fødevarestyrelsen's Claims Rules Require

Short answer: the same claims regime as dietary supplements, plus a dedicated rulebook for restaurants and dishes

A restaurant or food business collaborating with an influencer is covered by the same nutrition- and health-claims rules that apply to dietary supplements — the EU's Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (1924/2006) applies to all food and drink, including unpackaged food served at a restaurant. But Fødevarestyrelsen (the Danish Food Authority) also publishes a dedicated guidance page specifically about claims for restaurants and dishes, which bans calling a single dish "healthy," marketing it with a green health badge, or claiming it's "recommended by dietitians" — while allowing general statements about a restaurant's overall efforts that aren't tied to one specific dish.

This is practical guidance from Make Influence, not legal advice. Use it to get an overview of what the rules require — get the specific assessment of your exact wording from a lawyer or food-law consultant if there's any doubt.

Why this is a distinct topic — not dietary supplements with a different product

Dietary supplements and influencer marketing covers how the Claims Regulation applies specifically to supplements. But Fødevarestyrelsen's own guidance on marketing food and feed through influencers is written more broadly: it covers all food and feed marketing through influencers, not only supplements. A restaurant, a food producer, or a food creator collaborating with an influencer on a dish, a menu or a product is equally covered — and carries one extra layer the supplements article doesn't address: Fødevarestyrelsen's dedicated page "Anprisning af spisesteder og madretter" (claims about restaurants and dishes), which specifically addresses what a restaurant — and therefore an influencer marketing it — may and may not say about a concrete dish.

Two tracks: general food marketing, and the specific track for restaurants

Fødevarestyrelsen has developed two guidance documents for marketing food and feed through influencers — one for companies, one for influencers. Both build on the same principle underlying the supplements guidance: only nutrition and health claims approved by the EU may be used, regardless of whether the wording comes from the company itself or from an influencer it has hired. The guidance for companies recommends the same five steps that apply to supplements (explain what a claim actually is; build a list of the specific approved claims; give examples of lawful phrasing; point out the pitfalls relevant to this product; name a contact person) — except here the steps apply to any food product, not just supplements.

On top of that general track sits a second, more specific rulebook for restaurants: Fødevarestyrelsen's page on claims about restaurants and dishes. It applies regardless of whether the wording appears on a menu, on the restaurant's own website — or in an influencer's post the restaurant paid for or invited.

What a restaurant — and the influencer marketing it — may not say about a specific dish

Fødevarestyrelsen's restaurant-and-dish guidance names concrete examples of wording that isn't allowed about a single dish:

Type of claim	Example	Why it's banned
Undocumented health claim about the food generally	"This food makes you smarter or stronger"	A health claim that isn't EU-approved and can't be documented
"Healthy" labelling of a single dish	A green health badge or the word "healthy" attached to one specific menu item	An unspecific health claim with no approved claim behind it — the same problem as "good for your gut" in the supplements guidance
Endorsement by health professionals	"Recommended by dietitians," or a dish developed together with a named health expert	Implies a professional endorsement the business can't document the way an approved claim requires
Marketing a collaboration with a health organisation	Highlighting a partnership with a patient association or health charity in marketing	Implies the organisation's endorsement of the product, which needs its own, separately documented basis

Notice the pattern: it isn't only concrete disease claims that get caught. As with dietary supplements, the most common trap is a vague, unspecific health claim that sounds harmless but can't be traced back to anything approved.

What can actually be said — general statements about a restaurant's efforts

The guidance leaves room for general statements about what a restaurant is doing — as long as the statement meets three conditions: it's concrete (not a vague claim), it isn't tied to one specific dish, and it's placed somewhere that covers the whole menu or restaurant — for example at the entrance, the counter, or the buffet, not as a claim printed on the dish itself. One example of allowed wording, straight from Fødevarestyrelsen's own guidance: "Serves salad with every dish; dropped the deep fryer." That's a description of a concrete action, not a health claim about a specific dish — and so it's allowed, even though in practice it signals a healthier concept.

A nutrition claim about a specific dish needs documentation — not just a good impression

If a restaurant — or an influencer it's working with — wants to say something concrete about one dish's content, for example that it's "high in fibre" or has "no added sugar," it isn't enough that it sounds right. The Claims Regulation's annex sets concrete, quantitative thresholds for when a nutrition claim may be used. Two of the most common:

Claim	Requirement (per 100 g)
"Source of fibre"	At least 3 g fibre
"High fibre" / "high in fibre"	At least 6 g fibre

Intensifying words like "very" or "super" in front of a claim aren't allowed — a claim has to be used in its approved, unintensified form, however tempting it is to make it sound punchier. A restaurant that wants to say "our salad is very high in fibre" breaks the rule twice over: once by using an intensifier, and again — if the dish doesn't actually meet the threshold — by using a claim that isn't documented.

Worked example (hypothetical, not a real Make Influence customer)

The numbers below are invented, purely to illustrate how the threshold is actually calculated — not a real analysis of any dish.

Assume a salad bowl weighing 350 g in total, with 12 g of fibre. Converted to fibre per 100 g: 12 g ÷ 3.5 (350 g ÷ 100 g) = 3.43 g fibre per 100 g. That clears the threshold for "source of fibre" (at least 3 g/100 g), so the restaurant can legitimately call the dish a source of fibre. But it falls short of the threshold for "high in fibre" (at least 6 g/100 g) — so an influencer or restaurant calling the same bowl "high in fibre" is using a claim the dish doesn't actually meet, even though "source of fibre" would have been fully lawful.

Decision framework

IF you want to say something general about the restaurant's health efforts (e.g. less fried food, more vegetables) → keep it unspecific to any one dish, and place it somewhere that covers the whole restaurant — not as text on the dish or menu item itself.

IF you want to use a specific nutrition claim about one dish (e.g. "high in fibre," "no added sugar") → get the dish's actual content documented against the approved threshold before anyone — including the influencer — uses the wording.

IF an influencer wants to praise the dish as "healthy" or "recommended by dietitians" on their own initiative → get the wording changed to something concrete and documented, however well-intentioned the compliment is.

IF you're considering highlighting a partnership with a health organisation or named expert in the marketing → get it legally reviewed separately, since it's one of the explicitly named, banned categories.

Who's responsible?

Exactly as with dietary supplements, it's the business — the restaurant or food producer — that carries the fundamental responsibility for an influencer's posts complying with the rules, regardless of whether the collaboration is paid, a gifting arrangement, or simply an invitation to a free meal. That holds even if the influencer comes up with the wording themselves ("that was just my own opinion") — the responsibility for having given the influencer the right guardrails still sits with the business.

Make Influence's perspective

In our experience, restaurant and food collaborations are one of the areas where the claims rules get overlooked most often, because in practice they feel like "just food" rather than a regulated product. An influencer invited to a tasting, or given a dish for free, will often naturally praise it with words like "so healthy" or "recommended by a dietitian friend" — without knowing that's exactly the kind of wording Fødevarestyrelsen has named as banned. Our clear recommendation is to give the restaurant or food brand the same written list of what can and can't be said that we'd recommend for dietary supplements — and explicitly name "healthy," "recommended by dietitians" and similar phrasing as wording the influencer should avoid unless there's documentation behind it.

FAQ

Do these rules only apply to restaurants, or also to a food producer or food creator collaborating with an influencer?

They apply broadly to all food marketing — restaurants are simply the example Fødevarestyrelsen's dedicated guidance names specifically. A food producer marketing a specific product through an influencer is covered by the general claims track described above, regardless of whether the product is sold in a shop or served at a restaurant.

Does the post also need to be marked as an ad, on top of complying with the claims rules?

Yes — those are two entirely separate duties, just as with dietary supplements. The claims rules govern which health and nutrition claims may be used about the food. Ad disclosure governs whether the audience can even tell the post is paid or invited content. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full disclosure duty — it applies even to a free meal with no formal agreement.

Do the rules apply if the influencer just got a free meal, with no agreement to post about it?

Yes, if the influencer actually posts about the experience and uses a claim in the post. The claims rules are tied to the content of the claim itself, not to whether there's a formal agreement or payment — exactly as with dietary supplements.

Can an influencer say a dish "tastes healthy" or "feels light" without that counting as a claim?

That's a genuine grey area that depends on the exact wording. A purely subjective taste impression ("it tastes fresh") is different from a claim about a nutritional or health property ("it's healthy" or "high in fibre"). If there's doubt about where the line falls for a specific piece of wording, it should be checked with a food-law consultant or Fødevarestyrelsen directly before the influencer posts it.

Do the same documentation requirements apply as for environmental or sustainability claims about a restaurant?

The principle is related — both rulebooks require that a specific claim can be traced back to something documented, not just sound convincing — but they're two separate, independent regimes. A claim that a dish is "sustainable" or "climate-friendly" falls under the separate environmental-claims regime, not the Claims Regulation. See environmental and sustainability claims in influencer marketing: what Danish law requires for that regime.

How does this differ from the rules for alcohol, finance or pharma, which are also "regulated industries"?

The Claims Regulation applies to all food and drink and isn't industry-specific the way the rules for alcohol, financial products or pharmaceuticals are, which carry their own, far stricter regimes. See influencer marketing in regulated industries: alcohol, finance and pharma in Denmark for the full picture of when a food or drink collaboration can slide into that more heavily regulated track — for example if a drink is marketed with a disease-curing claim.

Should brand-safety vetting of a food-reviewing influencer look at their past claims?

Yes. An influencer who has historically used words like "healthy," "detox" or "recommended by experts" about food or drink without documentation is a signal worth catching before a restaurant or food collaboration is signed. See brand safety checklist for influencer partnerships for the full eight-point checklist.