Marks & Spencer today announced it has made further progress in reducing salt levels across an even broader range of its most popular food items, meeting the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA’s) 2010 targets in the categories of sandwiches, cooking sauces, pasta sauces, cakes and fruit pies 3 years ahead of deadline.  This is in addition to its earlier success in meeting FSA targets for breakfast cereals, ready meals and bread.  

The announcement coincides with the launch of the latest FSA salt advertising campaign, due to start on Monday 19th March, to encourage consumers to be aware of salt levels in their favourite everyday meals.  With millions of customers buying M&S staples such as sandwiches and ready meals every week, the retailer is leading the way in helping its customers reduce the amount of salt they consume by reducing salt in these foods.

M&S nutritionist Claire Hughes comments: “At Marks & Spencer we are as passionate about the health of our customers as we are about the taste of our food.  We have made considerable achievements in terms of meeting the FSA targets in so many areas, three years before the 2010 target.  Nevertheless, we will continue to work on salt reduction further in these products and have set ourselves additional salt targets in some categories. In doing this, we can ensure M&S continues to help customers further reduce their consumption of salt and take a lead on salt reduction for retailers and manufacturers alike.”

M&S is able to implement these far reaching targets because unlike other supermarkets it is 100% own brand and has complete control of all it sells.

Salt reduction is just part of M&S’s bigger commitment to healthy eating.  Other recent initiatives include the introduction of 1,500 in-store Healthy Eating Advisors, removal of hydrogenated fats across all its foods and the introduction of colour coded ‘traffic light’ GDAs on front of packs.

M&S RESULTS AGAINST FSA TARGETS AND INFORMATION ON ITS OWN ADDITIONAL TARGETS

FSA Product Categories

 FSA Target
(per 100g) Do we meet FSA target? M&S Target
(per 100g – based on a maximum salt level rather than an average)
Ready meals Chinese/Thai/Indian 0.8g (ave) Yes 0.8g (max)
Italian/Traditional & other 0.6g (ave) Yes 0.6g (max)
Pizzas With high salt toppings 1.2g (ave) Yes 1.2g (max)
Without high salt toppings 1.0g (max) No 0.9g (max)
Sandwiches With high salt fillings 1.3g (ave) Yes 1.5g (max)
Without high salt fillings 1.0g (ave) Yes 1.0g (max)
Pre-packed Bread & rolls  1.1g (ave) Yes 1.0g (max)
Breakfast cereals  0.8g (ave) Yes 0.8g (max)
Cook in & pasta sauces Cook in & pasta sauces
(excludes pesto) 1.1g (ave) Yes 1g (max)
Pesto & other thick sauces 3g (ave) Yes 3g (max)
Cakes  0.6g (ave) Yes 0.6g (max)
Fruit Pies  0.4g (ave) Yes 0.4g (max)

M&S food industry facts:

• ‘Plan A’ – Healthy Eating Advisors form part of Marks & Spencer’s £200m ‘eco-plan’ (announced 15th Jan 07).  They have been trained on healthy eating, nutrition and labelling to enable them to assist customers with diet and nutrition queries about M&S foods.  We also pledge to increase the amount of ‘Eat Well’ products from 30% to 50% of all food sales. 
• Eat Well - All Eat Well products are free from artificial flavourings, colours and sweeteners and may contain one or more added benefits such as being low in fat, high in fibre or rich in omega-3 oils, part of the five-a-day fruit and vegetable intake and a source of vitamins and minerals. In addition Marks & Spencer has produced some products, which are nutritionally balanced.  
• HVO’s – we were the first retailer to remove HVO’s from our entire food production 
• Cook!™ - the first ever additive-free range consisting of over 180 fresh, raw ingredients with sauces - setting industry-leading standards in food retailing.
• GM-free food – we maintain our policy of only selling food made with non-GM ingredients.
• Free-range Eggs – we only use free-range eggs in all the products we sell.
• Pesticides – we continue to have a leading position on pesticide reduction, having already banned 60 pesticides we are working with our suppliers to phase out an additional 19
• Oakham Chicken – All fresh chicken sold in Marks & Spencer stores is an exclusive variety - the Oakham Chicken.  Reared in barns with straw bales, the Oakham Chicken has an improved feed making it more succulent and better flavoured.
• Additive free ready meals - Unnecessary additives including hydrogenated fats, artificial colourings, artificial flavourings, modified starches, malt extract and maltodextrin have been removed from ready meals since mid 2006.   Artificial preservatives are only used in traditional bacon curing salts and in some Chinese dishes which use authentic ingredients from the Far East.

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