The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has attacked what it considers to be a flawed government-funded survey of salt in food.
FDF communications director Julian Hunt said the study of 831 products by UK local authorities, funded by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), between 2005 and March 2007 was "not structured to reflect where people shop and how they shop"
The report from the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Affairs (Lacors), showed that salt content had fallen by an average of nearly 11% since 2005, but it was critical of the high levels still found in a number of products and particularly of labelling.
Hunt criticised the survey for only covering samples from five of 12 regions. He said samples were not taken to reflect the market share of individual supermarkets, such as Londis - a comparatively small retailer - or the proportion of particular product groups consumed, such as noodle-type snacks, which are not staple foods. Hunt claimed it did not provide a complete picture, saying he found it "very worrying"
A Lacors spokesman accepted that sampling did not always reflect consumption patterns, but it concentrated on types of products that had historically been identified as having high salt levels.
The Lacors study showed that more than one in five noodle-type snacks contained more than 4g of salt per serving. The FSA recommends an adult consumes a maximum of just 6g a day. The report also suggested the industry was misleading consumers on portion sizes, and gave one example of portion sizes being given for a single chicken nugget.
Lacors chairman Councillor Geoffrey Theobald said: "There is concern that customers are being hoodwinked and misled by some manufacturers who are deliberately quoting unreasonably small portion sizes on their packaging to mask products' true salt content."