Salt Stakeholder Meeting 15 July 2004

Monday 9 August 2004

The meeting was attended by over 40 representatives from industry, consumer and health organisations. It was addressed in turn by Paul Lincoln (National Heart Forum), Mark Kerr (British Hospitality Association/Whitbread), Alison Percy (Cragg Ross Dawson) and Neil Martinson (Director of Communications FSA). Tom Murray (Head of Nutrition FSA) chaired the meeting.

Paul Lincoln - Salt and public health

Paul Lincoln began by giving a short synopsis of the relationship between salt and public health. He emphasised that raised blood pressure remains a neglected public health area, both in terms of prevention and treatment. He illustrated that the health dividend is immense with the World Health Organization (WHO) now calculating that half of all cardiovascular disease cases could be prevented by better control of blood pressure.

He advocated main areas for action, which included:

• Fully engaged leadership from Government and industry
• Sustained comprehensive Government strategy including raising public, professional and industry awareness, as the Agency had initiated.
• Strong united resolve from Government and civil society to see effective action.

Mark Kerr - Food Service Industry perspective

Mark Kerr's presentation provided a perspective from the Food Service Industry (FSI). He emphasised that salt has not featured high on the FSI agenda until recently, as industry research indicated that when consumers eat out they do so as a treat, health not being an issue. He acknowledged positively the work of Agency officials in raising salt reduction issues in a constructive manner with industry colleagues. He referred to the practical difficulties of providing nutritional information to consumers where information is largely via the menu. He considered that the first phase would be educating the industry. He reported that larger companies are discussing salt reduction with suppliers as part of Project Neptune. This is a food industry initiative to address the issues of salt reduction across all sectors.

He concluded by positively looking to a future of salt reductions, acknowledging that this is not easy for industry, but they are moving in the right direction.

Discussion

The discussion that followed covered the following issues:

• A suggestion that industry could start raising an established policy on diet, activity and health internally for employees.
• That the Agency could issue regular public progress reports via consumer / health interest groups
• Industry to include diet and health progress indicators within annual and corporate reports.
• Some industry sectors felt that reaching 6g salt daily level was a large target without a consumer pull factor. Although it was also felt that much had already taken place without consumers knowing or creating demand.
• The Government's approach to 'naming and shaming' was criticised by industry members as demotivating when progress on salt reductions had been made. It was suggested that the Agency should continue to praise progress with reductions where this was justified.
• Examples were provided where consumers had rejected products when salt had been reduced. It was felt that salt reductions needed to be a mixture of graduated action as well as information to consumers.

Alison Percy - Agency's Salt Campaign qualitative research

Alison Percy presented an overview of the Agency's Salt Campaign qualitative research. The conclusions of the research were as follows:

• The message about salt is beginning to get through, but there is still little understanding of the links between high intakes and health implications or that people are probably eating too much.
• Messages around salt are complicated and consumers need to be taken through a series of message steps over time, including why too much salt is bad for health, and practical tips on reducing salt intake that will enable behaviour change.
• It is important to continue emphasising that the majority of salt intake comes from processed foods.

Neil Martinson - The Agency's Salt Campaign

The final presentation by Neil Martinson outlined the process undertaken to develop the messages for the campaign resulting in the key message: 'Too much salt is bad for your heart'. He explained that through a variety of mediums campaign information would be matched to increase audience current understanding.

He explained that the campaign would be launched in mid September, running for 5 weeks to enable high levels of awareness of the messages. He reiterated that the campaign is part of the broad range of activities that the Agency is involved in on salt reduction.

Discussion

The concluding discussion covered the following issues:

• Some attendees felt that the campaign should take a balanced diet approach. This was discussed in light of being able to cover all aspects of healthy eating advice within a public health awareness campaign. The broad consensus on the public health implications of high levels of salt in the diet was highlighted. The Salt Campaign is one aspect of the bigger picture of work within the Agency's Nutrition Action Plan.
• Whether the Agency would consider a legislative approach if the campaign were not successful. This aspect was deliberated in respect of appropriate salt reductions being made during the given timescale. The Agency's Salt Campaign has interim targets in place and should it be considered that unsatisfactory progress had been made, alternative measures would be discussed.
• When campaign messages would focus on salt behaviour change. It was acknowledged in the meeting that reducing salt intake to the recommended levels would not be achieved without a concerted effort. Agency research has shown that the messages around salt are complicated and the audience needs to be taken through a series of message steps over time. A public awareness and knowledge raising campaign is required as a step towards behaviour change in salt intake reduction. The Agency envisages that phase two of the campaign would focus on behaviour change.
• The labelling implications of adding 'salt' as well as 'sodium' to labels, an issue, which is under debate in Europe. Industry attendees highlighted this as a complex area particularly with reference to product reformulations. Discussion also took place on the practice of leaving product labels unchanged while salt reformations take place in order to gauge consumer reactions. The implications of this approach and Agency survey fieldwork was raised.
• Industry representatives expressed concern about particular food products being targeted through the campaign. It was explained that the first phase was about raising awareness rather than focusing on specific foods.
• There was support for the Agency's interactive approach and general agreement about the need for a high profile public information campaign on salt, which could drive consumer demand for reduction of salt in products.
• The event and audience as a valuable forum to try out proposals for large campaigns.

Conclusion

Next steps:

• Food Standards Agency to circulate a note of this meeting to attendees.
• An email system to enable information sharing between the Agency and stakeholders will be activated.
• The Agency continues its programme of meetings with industry organisations to obtain long-term plans with stepwise reductions commensurate with achieving its own target of 6g per person per day by 2010.