Yes
Andrew Opie
Director of food policy at the British Retail Consortium

All BRC members are very supportive of salt reduction and have worked on it successfully for several years. We want to reduce the salt in food where possible.

However, the new targets will be difficult to achieve for many reasons. The first is consumer preference. Our members have already seen an increase in complaints about taste after reductions in salt – in breakfast cereals, for example – and we have real concerns that this will turn customers off. Tastes have to be changed over a reasonably lengthy period of time. They notice if you take salt out too quickly. Retailers have to take people along with them. Early on, too much salt was removed too quickly from soup and consumers objected.

A retailer’s own brand will go right across product groups – a big supermarket could be looking at reformulating 10,000 products. We are not reducing only salt but also additives and saturated fat. It’s difficult for all of these to be met in a short time frame.

For retailers there is a commercial issue. They are competing against branded goods and takeaways. For example, your local kebab shop is a long way behind the retailers – we have moved the quickest. Now others need to make the effort. The Food Standards Agency needs to work at improving the performance of all food outlets. Retailers have been successful at adapting the taste, using more herbs instead of salt, for example. But salt is also used in technological design: how products look and feel.

Reducing salt further could make biscuits soggy and the crusts on bread less crisp. To achieve the same effect will require huge investment in new technology – costs that consumers will have to bear.

Salt has also been used in the preservation of various foods for centuries, such as cheeses, bacon and ham. The proposed targets would mean a reduction in shelf life of up to two weeks for bacon and slightly less for ham. That creates difficulties for the supply chain while the consumer also expects products to last for a certain time – it would increase the amount they throw away. We are trying to work with the Government on food waste so we should make sure we connect up our food policy.

There are other levers that could be pulled to reduce salt instead of constantly putting pressure on retailers to reformulate food. What about the way we put meals together in our own homes? Educating people about portion control would bring salt consumption down. Why don’t we think about the amount of salt that celebrity chefs use, for example?

Food policy has become too much about data-driven target-setting, which is not only difficult to achieve but very expensive. The Government is not doing enough on improving the consumer’s overall diet. We do aspire to reach these levels. However, the 2012 time limit is not deliverable and will undermine other work that we are doing on food waste.

No
Rosemary Hignett
Head of choice and dietary health at the Food Standards Agency

Average salt intake in the UK is about 8.6g a day. The Government first looked at the effects of salt on health in 1994 and again in 2003. Advisers said that 6g was a practical target for which to aim.

There are solid medical grounds for this. A high salt diet is a big risk factor in developing high blood pressure – which makes you three times more likely to suffer heart disease or a stroke, and twice as likely to die from it. Reducing the average daily intake to 6g will prevent 20,200 premature deaths a year. The progress already made by industry and consumers means we have cut intakes by 0.9g since 2001, saving an estimated £1.5 billion a year by preventing ill health.

About 75 per cent of the salt we eat is already in foods we buy. Different products contain different levels of salt – dairy and meat products, bread and breakfast cereals are all big contributors, as are soups, sauces, baked beans, ready meals and pizzas. This is why it is important that we focus on processed foods – it can instantly reduce intake. This is the right way to look at consumer choice. At home people have the choice whether to add salt, but by adding salt to foods people buy, you limit their choice.

Salt has many uses. It enhances flavours and acts as a preservative. It helps to brown foods when cooked and improves the texture of foods such as crisps. We cannot take all salt out – food still has to taste and look good. The targets are challenging. We are exploring different technological solutions with industry. In most cases, there are already products on the market with salt at the target levels, so we believe they are achievable.

Some companies have made considerable strides in reducing salt, by up to 70 per cent in some products, but in others, levels are still high. It is important that we make progress in the big contributors of salt to the diet. Bread contributes about 20 per cent of our salt intake. The Federation of Bakers has demonstrated that reducing salt can make dough sticky, clogging up the plant. However, sliced, wrapped bread with lower salt is available for consumers to choose and supermarket own brands often contain less salt.

It is true that reducing salt can reduce shelf life and we considered this when reviewing our targets. We are in discussion with other agencies over the issue of waste and see no conflict of policy at the target salt levels.

It takes about eight weeks for taste buds to adapt to less salt. If people eat less salt for two months, then you expose them to their old diet, they tend to reject it. So three years is ample, provided it is gradual. Most negative responses occur when manufacturers make a sudden, huge reduction. An Australian study found that salt in bread could be reduced by 25 per cent over six weeks without complaint.

We are meeting caterers and have commitments from big companies on healthy eating. Cutting the amount of salt in processed food is a big step towards hitting our 6g target.

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