Plan to cut salt and trans-fats

Companies in various sectors are being urged to reduce the level of salt and bad fats contained in their food.

Blue chip companies who are part of the Food Network, including McDonalds and Mars, have all had a letter from the Health Secretary asking for each member to make significant efforts to reduce, if not eliminate, harmful fats and to limit the salt content. In addition, they were asked in the case of restaurants and QSRs

This push on reducing unhealthy ingredients is not a compulsory one - the Government has been keen to stress that it does not want to put regulations on food companies - it is obligatory as to whether they choose to commit.

If members of the Food Network choose to commit, from September 2011 all pubs, restaurants, cafes, fast food outlets and quick service restaurants (QSRs), take aways, sandwich parlours and canteens will be asked to put calorific information on their food and menus, providing the consumer with information on what they will be consuming.

Many of the members argue that calorific and various other nutritional information is available on their website, however this is deemed to not be enough - 'consumers want to know what they are going to eat right before they order it, not when they get home and look in up on the web'

The push to reduce the salt content of various foods comes following statistics that the average adult consumers over 40% more salt that the recommended daily allowance of 6g.

The FSA has provided calculations stating that over 20,000 premature deaths are caused every year by diet with too much salt. This new initiative could help to prevent that, and as no legislation is planned to be brought in (the initiative is simply a obligatory plan) this should come at minimal cost to the tax payer.

Companies who have received details of the plan include all members of the Food Network, including fast food outlets, restaurants and QSRs (McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Subway), food retailers (The Co-operative, Morrisons, Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Asda, Tesco, Marks and Spencer), food manufacturers and processors (AB Foods, PepsiCo, Unilever, United Biscuits, Mars, Kellogg's) and a number of charities (Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK).