Cutting Back on Salt

This week is the 17^th Annual Salt Awareness Week organised by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH). Since CASH first started Salt Awareness Week 17 there has been significant progress in salt reduction in food and in the diet of the UK population. That’s a good result from a health perspective as too much salt can increase risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, but the majority of us still eat more than the recommended 6g per day.

At M&S we started our salt reduction programme in 1998 by looking into bread recipes, at a time when the health issues of too much salt in the diet were just starting to be highlighted. From that point on we have continued to have an active salt reduction programme across all our food, alongside reviewing the saturated fat, added sugar and calorie content where we can as part of the product development process.

We will only reduce salt or continue to reduce it in products where there is no compromise in quality or safety of the product, as our food must meet the high standards our customers expect from us.

We have made good progress on the 2017 targets; we meet 35 out of the 65 categories including areas that are highlighted as contributing most salt in the diet e.g. bread, sandwiches, bacon and are making good progress in the majority of other areas, as you will see from the below progress report. There are challenges however in meeting some of the 2017 targets - some of which are for food safety reasons e.g. ham and cured meat, uncured meat, cured meat topped pizzas, uncured meat and some for quality reasons e.g. pies, sausage rolls and premium burgers, but we will continue to review salt and make progress where we can.

In the past there has been some criticism about “hidden” salt in foods. We provide clear, colour-coded front of pack nutrition labelling on our products to help our customers put the salt content of a specific food into the context of the recommended daily intake of 6g per day.

We’d also like to see a change in how progress is reported; in some product areas e.g. crisps we believe that per 100g targets are not necessarily the right way to report the nutrition content of food. We know that this approach allows comparatives from a nutrition science perspective but consumers do not eat food in 100g portions. As the broader Department of Health and Public Health England Obesity Strategy will look at portion sizes, we need to ensure that this is captured in nutrition data and reformulation achievements.

The real challenge for us all is instead of focusing on individual nutrients, how do we get more people eating a healthy balanced diet? There is no simple answer to this and it needs to be delivered through collaborations academics, industry and Governments.

M&S Salt Data by Category Report: March 2017

PRODUCT CATEGORY	SUB CATEGORY	SALT TARGET	% OF PRODUCTS MEETING TARGET
Bacon		2.88g ave	100%
Biscuits	Sweet	0.95g max	95%
	Savoury	1.75g max	70%
Baked Beans		0.56g max	0%
Bread	Plain	1.13g max	98%
	With additions	1.13g max	67%
Breakfast Cereals			100%
Burger	All	0.88g max	90%
Butter	Salted butters	1.68g max	86%
	Lightly salted butters	1.13g max	66%
	Spreads	1.38g max	0%
Cake	All	0.7g max	96%
Canned Fish	Tuna	0.9g ave	95%
	Salmon	0.8g ave	0%
	Other	1.5g max	100%
Canned Vegetables		0.13g max	50%
Cheese	Hard pressed	2g max	99%
	Soft white	0.68g max	83%
	Cottage Cheese all	0.53g max	100%
	Mozzarella	1.35g max	100%
	Blue Cheese	2.0g max	95%
	Cheese Spreads	1.8g max	50%
	Processed Cheese Other	2.0g max	96%
Crisps & Snacks	Potato Crisps	1.45g max	91%
	Extruded	2g max	98%
	Pelleted	2.88g max	95%
	Salt & Vinegar	2.g max	67%
Desserts	Dessert Mixes	0.45g max	71%
	Cheesecakes	0.45g max	81%
	Sponge based	0.63g max	95%
	Other	0.28g max	85%
Fruit Sweet Pies	All	0.33g max	89%
Gravy and Stocks	Gravy	1.13g max	100%
	Stock	0.85g max	100%
Ham & Cured Meat		1.63g max	40%
Meals	Meals and meal centres	0.85g max	82%
Meat Pies	Deli pies and sausage rolls	1.13g max	76%
	Other meat pies	0.75g max	68%
	Cornish Pasties	1.0g max	100%
Morning Goods	Powder Raised	1.25g max	95%
	Yeast Raised	0.88g max	67%
Other Cereals		0.63g max	93%
Pasta		0.88g max	100%
Pastries		0.45g max	60%
Pizza	All	1.25g max	90%
Quiche	All	0.68g max	95%
Rice	Flavoured	0.58g max	100%
	Unflavoured	0.18g max	100%
Sandwiches	With high salt ingredients	1.5g max	95%
	Without high salt ingredients	0.88g max	96%
Sauces	Ketchup	1.7g max	100%
	Salad Cream	1.58g max	100%
	Mayo	1.25g max	82%
	Salad dressings	1.5g max	95%
	Stir In Pasta Sauces	0.93g max	89%
	Thick Sauces	1.63g max	95%
	Pastes	3.75g max	95%
Sausages	Sausages	1.38g max	95%
	Stuffings and sausage meat	1.7g max	100%
Scotch Eggs	All	0.78g max	34%
Soup	All	0.63g max	95%
Uncured Meat		0.68g max	40%
Vegetables	Processed potatoes	0.69g max	97%
Dried Beverages		0.15g max	100%