Sodium content of bread in the present study ranged from 330 to 790 mg Na/100 g for individual products, whereas the target for the maximum salt content of bread set by the Australian Food and Health Dialogue is 400 mg/100 g [ 28], suggesting opportunity for further salt-reduction.
Labour supports a minimum alcohol price, standardised cigarette packets and is consulting on maximum salt and fat contents, as opposed to fat taxes.
For setting food composition and reformulation targets, however, it turned out that it was much more plausible and feasible to set upper limits of unhealthy components (eg, maximum salt content in bread or trans fats in processed foods) than setting lower limits of healthy components (eg, minimum amount of fibre in bread or breakfast cereals, or the amount of vegetables in ready meals).
As mentioned previously, South Africa's salt reduction policy contains two components: (1) an informational campaign to reduce discretionary salt use and (2) mandatory regulation of maximum salt content in commercially produced foods in six key groups.
However, not all cheese types sold in the UK (see online supplementary appendix 1) have a salt target, unlike in other countries such as the New York City salt reduction targets, where they have included a target for parmesan type of cheese.
An M&S spokeswoman said: "We've led the way on salt reduction in many products and this product already meets the government's salt targets for 2017.
Overall, among the 394 cheeses that had salt reduction targets, 84.5% have already met their respective Department of Health 2012 salt targets.
Our findings show that cheese types with salt targets contained less salt than cheese types without salt targets, which suggests that the targets have helped focus and drive the manufacturers to reduce their salt levels.
In contrast, Fru-MRP showed a maximum salt-enhancing effect (3.2%) at 0.1%.
Table 3 shows the cheese products meeting the Department of Health 2012 salt targets.
