Image copyright Farmdrop

An advert designed to run on the London Underground was rejected because it contained bacon, butter, eggs and jam, an online supermarket said.

Farmdrop submitted a photograph which included images of the meat, dairy products and spread.

Transport for London (TfL) said it was up to advertisers to make sure any items featured were "high fat, sugar and salt (HFSS)-compliant".

Last month TfL issued a ban on all junk food advertising.

Foods found to be high in fat, sugar and salt are now not allowed to feature in advertisements on public transport.

Farmdrop said it cropped out the items entirely for the adverts so that they could run inside Tube trains.

It said it wanted to include these items to show that it was more than a "vegetable box" scheme.

Happy Meals

Farmdrop boss Ben Pugh said: "Our ad was a mixture of balanced, wholefoods, while McDonald's Happy Meals and chicken burgers are HFSS-compliant under these rules. It's crazy."

He added: "We support the [TfL junk food] ban, but it's being handled very unjustly.

A spokeswoman for TfL said: "The onus is on the advertiser to tell us whether products are HFSS-compliant and, in this case, they didn't provide us the information for eggs, butter and bacon."

She said Farmdrop could apply for the ban to be overturned if it could show the advert was aimed at adults.

Ticking time bomb'

McDonald's has recently said it never advertised products considered to be high in fat, salt or sugar to children.

The ban was introduced as London mayor Sadiq Khan said he wanted to tackle the "ticking time bomb" of child obesity in the city.

However, the Advertising Association has said the ban would have "little impact on the wider societal issues that drive obesity".