Katharine Jenner, Campaign Director at Action on Salt talks to Food Integrity about the importance of salt, ahead of their 5 day virtual summit 21-25th March
Salt Awareness Week 2022 takes place between 14 – 20th March and will shine a much-needed spotlight on a simple yet effective approach that we can all take to improve our health – shaking the salt habit – or more specifically, getting the food industry to shake their salt habit.
At this year’s Food Integrity 2022 and to mark our 23rd Salt Awareness Week, Action on Salt will raise awareness of the need for salt reduction as a key cardiovascular prevention policy, highlighting the lack of progress under the UK Government’s current voluntary salt reduction programme, which has resulted in our salt intakes remaining unchanged for a decade.
We will also highlight the shocking omission of salt from key health prevention policies such as junk food marketing and labelling (coming into force in 2022 and beyond) as well as highlighting successful case studies where salt has been reduced successfully, and how it is possible to have products that are both good for health, and good for profits.
Our salt intake is by far the biggest factor raising our blood pressure which is the major cause of stroke and accounts for half of all heart disease. Not surprisingly, raised blood pressure is currently the third largest risk factor for premature death and disability in the UK. The recommended salt intake in the UK is less than 6g a day for an adult, however, the latest figures show we are eating (on average) a whopping 40% more than this (8.4g/day)!
We have known for many, many years that too much salt can harm our health, and efforts to reduce population intakes has been a feature of UK food policy for two decades. It is also accepted globally as a cost-effective strategy to improve public health. Indeed, the UK led the world in reducing salt but due to government inaction, the country is now lagging behind, meaning many thousands of people are dying and suffering unnecessarily.
The UK salt reduction programme
Salt reduction in the UK pays greater focus on industry efforts to reduce the salt content slowly and unobtrusively in foods people already buy and eat – i.e. gradual reformulation. This allows consumer’s taste preferences to adjust to the new flavours, rather than risk impacting on sales. Salt reduction policies targeted specifically at the food industry are necessary because our food comes ‘ready salted’. Did you know that three quarters of the salt we eat each day is already in packaged and prepared foods – not just from crisps and ready meals but from bread and sauces to soups and takeaways? This salt cannot be removed by the consumer, so simply telling people to eat less does not work.
The UK’s salt reduction programme is well established. Voluntary salt reduction targets have been in place since 2006 covering around 80 categories of food. Various iterations have since been published to encourage companies to gradually reduce the salt content of the food they produce. Following positive progress under the Food Standards Agency in the early 2000s, progress has since floundered with responsibility for salt reduction transferring several times, including placing salt reduction under the Department of Health’s Responsibility Deal – a public-private partnership that is widely recognised to have been a failure.
An updated set of targets were published in September 2020, to be achieved by 2024, and now falls under the responsibility of the new Office of Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly Public Health England).
The UK’s reformulation programme has since expanded to include sugar and calorie reduction, which was much delayed and diluted following pushback from the food industry and has also made little progress. The preventive health landscape is now dominated by obesity as opposed to cardiovascular prevention. Furthermore, key policies due to come into place in 2022, has omitted salt, with a focus on sugar and calories.
Technological solutions
There is no denying the requirement of salt in some foods, whether it’s for processing, microbiological and safety reasons, or sensory reasons. People have gotten used to, and now expect, a salty taste. But as evidenced by our product surveys and technical reports, there is scope for extensive reductions with many companies successfully producing commercially popular foods with less salt.
There are several available strategies and technologies available to manufacturers to produce lower salt products. These vary from gradual reductions in salt added during the production process, to the use of reduced sodium salt replacers, or alternative processing techniques such as high pressure.
The use of potassium-based salt replacers is acknowledged as the best alternative to salt in many categories of food. It has similar processing, microbiological and sensorial functionalities, but does carry an added cost to the manufacturer and often does not offer clean labelling, which many manufacturers strive for.
The UK’s salt reduction model has inspired the world and to date, more than 90 countries now have some form of salt reduction policy in place. 57 countries have salt targets, including 19 sets of mandated targets. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released Global Sodium Benchmarks to accelerate progress which have since been adopted by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and, in many cases, these salt reduction targets are more ambitious than the UK. In parallel with this and the ever-increasing body of evidence implicating salt in cardiovascular disease (CVD), international salt reduction work is gaining momentum.
Action needed
It’s clear from our product surveys that the UK’s voluntary approach to salt reformulation is no longer working, with manufacturers not being motivated enough to reduce salt and failing to make any significant progress. The food industry can and must play a vital role in helping people reduce their salt consumption – but not all companies are prepared to step up and play their part by reformulating their products. So much more could be achieved with clear, comprehensive mandatory salt reduction targets in order to create a level-playing field and maximise the impact on our health.
This is where the Government needs to step in with new regulation (which is regularly monitored and reviewed) that financially disincentivises companies from producing salty products. Appropriate resource should be made available to companies struggling to meet salt targets.
At Food Integrity 2022, we look forward sharing our vision of putting salt back on the policy agenda and motivate the food industry to shake their salt habit so that we can all live longer, healthier lives.
