Responsibility deal salt targets may be ditched

By doing so, it hopes to make faster progress in stemming the soaring levels of obesity in the UK and winning wider support for the PHRD from important health groups. That includes the British Medical Association (BMA), which has yet to sign up to the Deal.

According to reliable sources, health secretary Andrew Lansley is likely to follow the lead of the European Commission and concentrate on obesity. This will focus attention mainly on reducing fat and alcohol consumption, which are two of the highest contributors to calorie intake.

Following a meeting of the High Level Group on Nutrition and Physical Activity in Brussels earlier this week [November 28 and 29], the EU Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health, to which it belongs, published its plans to tackle obesity across Europe.

New targets​

A formal announcement from the UK government on changes to the PHRD is unlikely until mid 2012, which would allow the industry and other organisations time to sign up to the new targets from 2013 onwards, said the sources.

“It is clear to me the Department of Health [DoH] follows the way the European Commission (EC) is going on obesity. Obesity and physical exercise are the two main elements of the push the EC is trying to get off the ground,”​ said one informed source.

“With that pressure, would there be anything extra to be gained by another two or three years trying to get the industry to take more salt out of products? If you use any common sense, you’d probably say the industry has done as much as it can.”​

Such a change in direction would also allow the government to simplify its approach to voluntary front-of-pack labelling, opting to label energy content alone, rather than energy, saturates, fat, sugar and salt. “I think it will be calories and there will be a push to put calories on front of pack,” ​said the source.

While the UK’s food and drink industry supported the voluntary measures included in the PHRD to improve the nation’s health, a vocal group of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has pressed for tougher action. Some have even called for legislation similar to the fat tax introduced by Denmark in October.

Earlier this week, shadow health minister Diane Abbott told our sister title Food Manufacture​: “The concern of health campaigners, clinicians and medical associations like the BMA are that the government is allowing commercial food interests to drive the agenda.​

“While everyone understands that government has to work both with health professionals but also with the industry, people think the government should be ahead of the agenda. And that many of the outcomes of the Food Responsibility Deal have been marginal compared with the challenge we are faced with when it comes to food.”​

Abbott added she did not support the introduction of legislation, such as a fat tax.

The PHRD was launched by the government last February with the support of the food industry, including the Food and Drink Federation. A number of food and drink firms have voluntarily signed up to pledges to reduce the levels of salt, sugar and fat in their products under the deal.

Consumer acceptance​

However, many manufacturers have expressed concerns that reformulation in some areas – such as in salt reduction – was reaching the limit to what could be achieved for technical and consumer acceptance reasons.

Director general of the British Nutrition Foundation, Professor Judy Buttriss, while supportive of voluntary rather than legislative measures to bring about behavioural change in the nation’s diet and lifestyles, accepted that progress with the PHRD had been slow. “We have huge amounts of work already invested in salt reduction by the retailers and many of the manufacturers, but there has been less done in foodservice,” ​she said.

She added: “I still don’t really understand quite how the calorie reduction​ [proposals] are going to work with industry. There might be more traction if they just focused on communicating directly to the public.”​

Buttriss warned that focusing on one set of stakeholders – the food industry – would not be enough to bring about the changes necessary in the diet and lifestyle of the nation to reduce obesity levels and the illnesses that result from it.