Fat fighters
For food and drink firms, there's been no easing into 2013. Selection boxes were still on sale when, on January 5, shadow health secretary Andy Burnham urged the government to cap levels of sugar, salt and fat in processed foods.
Then, a few weeks later, food and farming charity Sustain released a report recommending that a 20 pence per litre levy on soft drinks be included in this year's budget.
These calls for regulation imply the industry isn't trying to improve the nation's health. Yet the Food and Drink Federation's (FDF's) Delivering Healthy Growth report, which was unveiled at a conference on January 22, argued: 'it is clear that FDF members are doing a great deal'.
The report showcases the reformulation efforts of FDF members, including Kingsmill, Birds Eye, Mars, McCain, United Biscuits, Coca-Cola, Mondelz, Nestlé, Danone, PepsiCo, Premier Foods, Unilever, Britvic and General Mills.
To give a few examples, in 2011, Mondelz relaunched Dairylea spread, slices and portions with 25% less salt; United Biscuits has reformulated Digestives, Rich Tea and Hobnobs to be 80% lower in saturated fat than they were in 2005 and slashed the salt content of the same biscuits by 24%, 33% and 43% respectively since 2005; in 2011 the removal of hydrogenated vegetable oils from Nestlé's Nescafé Café Menu Cappuccino range resulted in average reductions of 36% in fat and saturated fat and 6% in calories. This followed reductions of 7% calories, 21% fat and 26% saturated fat in 2009. In 2012, Unilever relaunched Flora spread utilising new technology that enabled it to reduce calories, total fat and saturated fat. Flora Original has 24% less total fat, 17% less saturated fat and 23% fewer calories than the previous formulation, while Flora Light variant has 21% less total fat, 25% less saturated fat and 21% fewer calories than the previous formulation.
Nevertheless, it is clear more reformulation will be needed to escape the iron hand of the law.
In January, health secretary Jeremy Hunt warned that the government would step in and legislate if firms failed to 'get their house in order'.
So far, though, the government has shown that it favours a voluntary approach.
"The effectiveness of voluntary action is an underpinning principle of the government's [Public Health] Responsibility Deal (PHRD)," says Barbara Gallani, FDF director of food science and health. "At the recent launch of our Delivering Healthy Growth report, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Anna Soubry MP, confirmed that the government, is committed to voluntary action to improve the health of the population."
Voluntary approach
The Department of Health (DH) also confirms that "the Deal has made a good start since its launch in March 2011 and business is already taking action to help people with a healthier lifestyle."
To evaluate progress, every firm must return annual monitoring forms for each pledge they have signed up to. These are then published by the DH on the PHRD website. Firms will submit the second set of reports, which detail the delivery of pledges, by the end of April for publication in the summer.
The PHRD includes pledges on reducing calories and salt levels, removing trans fats and adding more fruit and vegetables to products. In the area of salt reduction, some signatories among them United Biscuits, Mars and Nestlé are still working on targets set for 2012.
The 2012 challenge
This is hardly surprising, as Purac, an ingredients supplier with expertise in healthy reformulation, says the 2012 salt reduction guidelines have been very challenging for the food industry.
"Consequently the Food Standards Agency [FSA] has given manufacturers additional time to comply with the guidelines," says Simone Bouman, business development manager with Purac.
Alice Cadman, head of strategic projects at United Biscuits, said her company had achieved 90% of its 2012 targets but still had one or two technical challenges to overcome and some smaller volume lines to adjust. "The sodium target includes raising agents, which are crucial to the texture of a biscuit. This has caused some challenges," she explains.
The DH confirms that it is reviewing the salt reduction targets this year to identify where further progress can be made. "There is a technical working group holding ongoing discussions regarding new targets for 2014," says Rachel Wilson, principal technical adviser with Leatherhead Food Research (LFR).
Some, including Richard Harrow of own-label frozen pizza, pasta meal and bread snack manufacturer Freiberger UK, hope that these revised targets will come down more heavily on operators in the foodservice sector. He says: "The key issue for us is that brands, takeaway and restaurant pizzas have not reduced salt at the same pace we have, which results in comments from consumers that some of our products do not taste as good as their local takeaway."
It looks likely that there will be some attempt to answer these calls for the foodservice sector to start playing catch up.
"It is our belief that the focus will be broadened to include foodservice and the catering sectors as part of the overall salt reduction strategy," says Bouman. "The FSA wants consumers to get used to the taste of lower salt foods, so it is essential to have common standards across the industry by food type."
It is also expected that any new targets will be sensitive to the technical challenges faced by some food categories.
"It is possible that rather than taking a broadbrush approach of a further percentage reduction across the board, specific categories will be considered in light of the technical difficulties faced by each sector," says Wilson.
Categories where salt has proved more challenging are meat, cheese, bakery products, extruded and pelleted snacks, cakes and pastries, pesto and other thick sauces and canned fish.
Research carried out last year by LFR on salt reduction on behalf of the FDF and British Retail Consortium targeted these categories and identified some solutions to these challenges.
"Some, such as Tate & Lyle's Soda-Lo, are commercially available now and may be able to take salt reduction to a new level, but it to perform consumer acceptability and safety trials takes time," says Wilson.
One of the LFR report's key recommendations was that the DH's advice on potassium-based replacer be reviewed, as there are many options for sodium reduction based on potassium salts.
"We understand that discussions within the DH are ongoing on this aspect of salt reduction, along with the working group discussions on salt reduction targets," Wilson says.
Salt reduction isn't the only area where there are limitations on what can be achieved through reformulation, either due to technical barriers or consumer acceptability.
Saturated fat
Cadman says United Biscuits had gone as far as it could in terms of reducing saturated fat in Rich Tea, Hobnob and Digestives. "These products contain just 2% saturated fat and that's as low as it can go it's lower than most cereal bars."
Similarly, when it comes to soft drinks, Richard Laming, media director of the British Soft Drinks Association, says: "You can only reformulate to the extent that consumers will still buy the product. There are some products where we already know it won't work iconic soft drinks whose recipes are the same around the world."
For this reason, reformulation is just one strand of the soft drink industry's response to the obesity issue. "The other," he says, "is about changing the product mix to encourage consumption of diet and low calorie options."
He cites figures that demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach: diet and low calorie drinks have increased their share of the market from 30% 20 years ago to 60% today. He adds that overall consumption of soft drinks with sugar is lower than in 2003 and emphasises that these shifts in consumer behaviour have happened without government regulation.
The industry needs to show that its voluntary action is having a positive effect on obesity. Until then, no amount of reformulation will see off the spectre of regulation.
serum release control makes better for you bangers
The key to reducing salt levels in processed meat products could be making them juicier, according to new findings from Netherlands-based contract research organisation NIZO.
The research, which was carried out within the framework of the Dutch initiative Top Institute Food and Nutrition (TIFN), found that by controlling serum release (moisture release during consumption), the salt content of sausages could be reduced by 15% or more while retaining the same perception of saltiness.
The study was done using cooked, lean, pork meat sausages with varying degrees of serum release and salt levels, but comparable texture.
"The sausages with high and low serum release were created by variations in the type of gum/thickener in the dough," said Dr Fred van de Velde, senior scientist and project manager. "Different types of thickener resulted in different degrees of serum release. The crucial part was maintaining a comparable texture at different degrees of serum release and different concentrations of added sodium chloride."
A trained quantitative descriptive analysis panel rated the saltiness, firmness and juiciness of sausages with a low- and high-serum release at three salt levels. The juiciest sausages were perceived as being the saltiest. The observed increase in salt perception as a result of increased juiciness was greatest at the lowest salt level.
Dr van de Velde believes this method can reduce salt levels by as much as 40%.
"The next step is to apply this finding in a commercial recipe," he says. "It can be applied to any category of food product that complies with juiciness as a positive attribute."
