Cereal producers make moves to meet concerns over health

Breakfast cereal manufacturers have promised to reduce salt in their products further, so long as they pass consumer taste tests. They have also pledged to introduce guideline daily amount (GDA) labelling in response to the government's health white paper.

Nestlé, meanwhile, will put GDA labelling of calories and fat per serving on all products as early as April this year in the UK. It has also accelerated its programme to cut salt, sugar and fat contents.

The Association of Cereal Food Manufacturers (ACFM) said that its members were working towards a 10% reduction in salt on top of the 22% cut between 1998 to 2003. Both the salt and sugar content in cereals have been criticised by consumer lobbying groups, such as Which?

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) claimed that shoppers have changed their buying habits in the wake of its Sid the Slug salt reduction campaign which began in September. It found a 32% increase by January in people "claiming to be making a special effort to cut down on salt" and a 31% increase in people checking labels for salt content. Another 27% said salt influenced their buying decisions "all of the time"

The FSA said 26m people eat more than the recommended maximum daily intake of 6g of salt -- 75% of it in processed products.

Manufacturers, meanwhile, fear traffic-light labels and nutrient profiling could hit sales. The ACFM said the labels would be a red light for most cereals.

Professor Tom Sanders, head of nutrition at King's College London, said: "This could have the undesirable effect of discouraging people from eating breakfast cereals."