Department of Health's Responsbility Deal

Seventy five percent of the salt we consume is found in processed food and therefore progress within the food industry, by all the retailers, manufacturers and caterers, is crucial if we are to reduce the salt intake of the UK population.

In early 2011 the Department of Health announced the launch of the Public Health Responsibility Deal. This is a series of pledges made by the food industry and other stakeholders regarding food, alcohol, occupational health and physical activity. Each organisation can sign up to as many or as few pledges as they wish.

There are three key food related pledges- Out of home calorie labelling, salt reduction and trans fat removal.

The salt reduction pledge states that:

"We commit to the salt targets for the end of 2012 agreed by the Responsibility Deal, which collectively will deliver a further 15% reduction on 2010 targets. For some products this will require acceptable technical solutions which we are working to achieve. These targets will give a total salt reduction of nearly 1g per person per day compared to 2007 levels in food. We recognise that achieving the public health goal of consuming no more than 6g of salt per person per day will necessitate action across the whole industry, Government, NGOs and individuals."

As part of our pledge, we will be acting as an independent monitor of the food industry progress by continuing to survey major product categories in UK stores. We will also be doing work with the industry to get more companies to sign up to the deal and commit to salt reduction. Click here to view CASH's response to the launch of the Responsibility Deal.

To date 54 companies have signed up to the pledge:

Artizian
ASDA
Aldi Stores Ltd
Alliance Boots
Apetito Ltd
Associated British Foods – UK Grocery Division
Association of Cereal Food Manufacturers Ltd.
Aunt Bessies Limited
Bella Italia Restaurants Ltd
Booker Group plc
Burton’s Foods Ltd
Cafe Rouge Restaurant Ltd
CH&Co Catering Limited
Compass Group UK & Ireland
Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH)
Co-operative Group (the)
Costa Limited
Ferrero UK Limited
General Mills UK
Greene King plc
HJ Heinz Co Ltd
Indulgnce Patisserie Limited
Initial Catering Services (Autograph)
ISS Facility Services – Food and Hospitality
ISS Facility Services Healthcare
JD Wetherspoon PLC
Kellogg Marketing & Sales Company (UK) Limited
Kraft Foods UK and Ireland
Marks & Spencer
Mars (UK)
Marston’s PLC
McCain Foods (GB) Ltd
Midcounties Co-operative
Morrisons Supermarkets Plc
Nestle UK
OCS Group UK Limited
PepsiCo UK & Ireland
Pizza Express Restaurants Ltd
Premier Foods
Produced in Italy Ltd
Punch Pub Company
Rodda’s
Sainsbury’s Supermarket Ltd
(Seven) 7 Day Catering Ltd
Sodexo
Strada Restaurants Ltd
Subway International B.V.
Tesco PLC
Unilever UK Ltd
United Biscuits (UK) Limited
Waitrose
Warburtons Limited
Weetabix
Whitbread Group PLC
YO! Sushi

The Food Standards Agency

The nutrition division of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has now moved to the Department of Health. Before the move they published a series of commitments from the industry to reduce the salt content of their products. All of the retailers and many manufacturers were able to meet 2010 targets. Catering outlets and restaurants have also made commitments to reduce the salt content of their menu items but are lagging behind the retailers with this. The Food and Drink Federation has recently announced that the salt content of the food bought in UK supermarkets has reduced by the equivalent of nearly 8,000 tons in the past two years. For more information about the commitments made by the industry to the FSA please click here.

Recent reductions

Sainsbury's has announced, since the CASH ‘free from’ survey, that their Free From products will be re-launched with lower salt levels from January 2010.

Jamie Oliver has made an incredible reduction in his pasta sauce following our release. The salt content has come down from 5.3g to 0.9g per portion – over 80%!

Subway has recently announced they would be reducing the average level of salt across their range by 33% with thanks to CASH.

Kellogg's finally announced a 30% reduction in the salt content of their cereal ranges including Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Coco Pops, Frosties and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes following pressure from NGOs such as CASH

EAT has removed their Thai chicken noodle soup from the shelves for reformulation in response to the CASH soup survey.

Heinz has reduced the salt levels of a number of their leading products including tomato ketchup, salad cream chicken soup and tomato soup in order to meet 2010 targets. This followed pressure from NGOs such as CASH