Stricter targets from FSA aren't worth their salt, say manufacturers

Manufacturers are up in arms about stricter voluntary salt targets for food products for 2010 and even stricter targets for 2012 proposed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which they claim have been dreamt up without any prior consultation with them.

Provision Trade Federation (PTF) director general Clare Cheney said she was "extremely disappointed" that the FSA had not spoken to the PTF about the feasibility of meeting the targets - particularly those for cheese, bacon and ham - before going out for wider consultation.

Cheney said the 2012 targets were " a complete surprise". " We suspect the figures have been drawn out of the air," she added.

Cheney said the PTF would be making strong representations to the FSA in an attempt to get the proposed targets reviewed. "If we don't succeed in persuading them to change the targets, the net effect will be the targets will be useless ... there is no point in agreeing a target if the industry can't do it."

The FSA announced last month that the UK's average daily salt consumption had fallen from 9.5g to 8.6g since 2000. While welcome, the FSA believed more needed to be done sooner if government targets of 6g a day were to be met and said there was scope for some food sectors to do more.

Carrie Bolt, a nutritionist with health campaign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health, said: "There are still many companies that have made little effort to [reduce salt levels] and we see wide differences in the salt content of many categories of foods ."