Kantar Worldpanel assessed a basket of products manufactured by Food and Drink Federation (FDF) member companies in 2023 and compared their contents to equivalents from eight years earlier.
The results showed that calories are down 24%, while salt is down 33% and sugar is down 25%.
During 2023, more than £160m was invested in R&D as part of efforts to create healthier food and drink choices for consumers, including reformulated recipes, new and healthier products and smaller portion sizes.
In addition to supporting government initiatives around reducing calories, sugar and salt, the FDF’s launched the ‘Action on Fibre’ initiative in 2021.
In 2023, members of ‘Action on Fibre’ introduced more than 150 new and reformulated products, bringing 190m additional servings of fibre to the UK population.
The FDF’s chief scientific officer Kate Halliwell praised the efforts of its members to develop “delicious and nutritious” food and drink products.
‘More funding needed from government’
“We’re proud to see the continued and significant advances made by our industry to offer healthier options reflected in the UK’s shopping baskets,” added Halliwell.
“The industry, and in particular smaller companies, could do even more with better government support, which is currently only a fraction of what’s available to, for example, investments in the aerospace or automotive manufacturing sectors. To take critical investment in healthier product innovation to the next level, we’re calling on government to support the UK’s largest manufacturing industry in boosting further investment in reformulation.”
Halliwell then called for more funding from the UK Government to assist with complexity of reformulation through greater levels of investment.
“We’re calling on the government to provide a £4 million fund to support SMEs who want to do the right thing, replicating the very successful Scottish government-funded Reformulation for Health programme across the whole of the UK,” she continued.
“This scheme has proven itself to be a cost-effective way of supporting innovative projects that have removed millions of calories from Scottish food products in line with public health goals.”
‘Helpful snapshot of progress’
Meanwhile, Alan Black, the director for food systems transformation at The British Nutrition Foundation, said that food companies are well placed to deliver the necessary change at scale in order to improve health outcomes.
“With diet-related disease linked to significant levels of ill health in the UK we have a responsibility to work together across the food environment to make it better,” Black explained.
“We know that reformulation can help reduce population intakes of nutrients of concern such as free sugars and salt, which could benefit public health outcomes. Increasing positive components in products such as fibre and fruit and vegetables and targeting portion size are also promising strategies for improving public health.”
Finally, Jacinta George, managing director at Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL), described the Kantar findings as a “helpful snapshot” of the progress that has been made in improving the health profile of food and drink products.
“RSSL helps companies to navigate this space and so we know that successful reformulation is multifaceted – it requires time and investment to change recipes and launch new healthier products,” said George.
“It’s not as simple as removing ingredients or replacing them with alternatives, a deep technical understanding of the function of different ingredients is needed. This is because reformulation can influence every characteristic of a product, from processing and cost, through to taste, texture and shelf-life. The significance of these changes cannot be overstated or underestimated because the quality of the product is key to consumer acceptance.”
