UK: New Revised Salt Targets Published

29 Apr 2014 --- The Food Standards Agency has published revised salt targets for processed foods to be implemented by 2017. While the agency recognises the progress that the industry has already made in reducing salt levels, it says the average salt consumption per person “remains high” and further efforts are still required.

In 2006 the FSA began a programme of work which included setting targets for the food industry to reduce levels of salt across a range of processed foods, in order to promote healthy eating. High salt intakes can contribute towards high blood pressure, which can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. About 75% of salt in the diet comes from processed foods, according to the FSA.

During summer 2013, the Food Standards Agency in Scotland and the Food Standards Agency in Northern Ireland worked closely with officials in the Department of Health and with industry, and other stakeholders to agree new salt targets.

The new 2017 targets recognise the progress that has already been made by the food industry and aims to encourage further reductions. Although salt levels in many foods covered by previous targets have reduced significantly, average salt consumption remains high. Salt levels in many foods covered by previous targets have reduced significantly, some by 40-50% or more, and more than 11 million kilograms of salt have been removed from foods. 

But average salt consumption per person is still high, at approximately 8.1g-8.8g/day. Considerable effort is still required to meet the dietary recommendation of no more than 6g/day.

The 2017 targets are suitably challenging and wide-ranging but recognise the different starting points and technical challenges. The categories remain substantially the same as the previous 2012 targets: one additional category has been added on meat extracts; one sub-category on salted butter was removed where industry had already met the target; and several minor changes have been made to better reflect current market position. This reduces the number of categories from 80 (2012 targets), to 76 in the 2017 targets.

The news follows the announcement of an analysis report earlier this month, which showed that the UK salt reduction programme had led to a fall in population blood pressure and thereby stroke and heart disease events and deaths.  The results were published in BMJ Open.

From the fall in blood pressure that was due to the salt reduction there has been a saving of approximately 18,000 stroke and heart attack events a year, 9,000 of which would have been fatal, the report stated.

Raised blood pressure throughout its range is the single biggest cause of death through the strokes and heart disease it causes (e.g. 62% of all strokes and 49% of heart disease). A high salt intake is the major factor that puts up our blood pressure.

In the mid-90s an action group, Consensus Action on Salt & Health (CASH), was set up, consisting of leading experts on salt and blood pressure in the UK. CASH was successful in persuading the government to invite the Food Standards Agency to develop a salt reduction programme, working in collaboration with CASH. As 80% of the salt that is consumed in the UK is put there by the food industry i.e. in processed foods, fast foods, canteen and restaurant foods etc, the public have no choice about eating it. Therefore progressive incremental targets to limit the amount of salt for each food category were set, which the industry had to achieve in a specified time. Reductions first started in 2003 and are continuing to this day.

Most products in the supermarket have now been reduced from 20 to 40%. These reductions have been made slowly, and there have been no loss of sales to the food industry, and the public are largely unaware of these reductions.

“This is great news for the UK, and shows just how effective the salt reduction policy is” says one of the paper’s authors, Sonia Pombo. “The food industry has worked hard to reduce levels of salt across many of their products, and as a result, average intakes of salt have gone down. The brilliance of the programme means that shoppers can still buy their favourite foods, just with less salt in them!”