Average salt intake in the UK has declined from 9.5g in 2001 to 9g a day now, new research from the Food Standards Agency has found. However, this is still considerably higher than the government’s recommended daily intake of 6g a day, the agency said.

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“Today’s results illustrate the progress that is being made in reducing the nation’s daily salt intake,” said FSA chair Dame Deirdre Hutton. “However, there is still some way to go before we reach the 6g target and we all now need to build on this to ensure that the downward trend continues.”


According to the FSA’s study, men on average eat more sale than women, consuming 10.2g a day compared to women’s average of 7.6g each day.


In order to continue driving salt intake down, the FSA has launched a new phase of its salt reduction campaign, that will include TV ads featuring Jenny Éclair.


Despite the FSA’s focus on the task ahead, UK industry body the Food and Drink Federation has said that the UK food industry is a world leader in salt reduction. According to FDF’s latest survey, members of the body have reformulated an GBP7.4bn (US$14.38bn) worth of products to have lower levels of salt compared to the year before, while GBP2.4bn worth of products have been launched with lower salt variants.

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Julian Hunt, FDF director of communications said: “Food manufacturers have made huge progress in reducing levels of salt in food. In addition our members provide ‘salt equivalent’ information on packs as well as the legally required ‘sodium’ information where practicable. They are also increasingly providing at-a-glance information on salt on the front of packs to help busy shoppers.”