Global fast food chain McDonald’s has been forced to withdraw a controversial advertising campaign, boasting of the simplicity of the firm’s recipe for French fries.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the ad – which claimed French fries were made of the humble potato and nothing else – was misleading.

Following complaints from health groups – including one from independent food watchdog the Food Commission, which highlighted the fact that chips were often soaked in dextrose sugar solution and contained “substantial” amounts of salt – the ASA moved to pull the plug on the ad.

The ad showed a potato in a French fries box with the text: “The story of our fries (end of story).”

ASA said the claim from the burger giant that “we peel them, slice them, fry them and that’s it” was misleading and ordered McDonalds to stop the adverts.

The watchdog’s said: “Because material parts of that process were omitted from the advertisement, the Authority concluded that the advertisement was misleading.”

McDonald’s has admitted to using a “low-concentrate dextrose solution” to colour its chips.