Food industry fails to drop the salt – evaluation of self-regulation in Australia

Researchers from The George Institute for Global Health analysed data from the Foodswitch database to assess if there were any changes in salt content between 2013 and 2017 in over 4,500 products from 16 Australian food manufacturers. The study found no clear evidence of reductions in salt levels overall, including 10 member companies of The International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA). Professor Bruce Neal, Executive Director at The George Institute said, “It suggests to me that when it comes to salt, voluntary pledges are not enough. We need government to step in and drive this, with regulation probably”. The article by Ndanuko et al., is published in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.