Canadian food industry fails to meet salt targets

The Canadian food industry has failed to meet voluntary targets on reducing sodium in its processed foods, according to a report by Health Canada.

A target was set in 2014 to cut the sodium in 94 processed food categories by 2016, but a reduction only occurred in 14% of them. There was no meaningful progress in reducing sodium in 48% of the categories, according to the Health Canada assessment, which evaluated over 10,500 food samples between February and June of 2017. In six of the categories, sodium content increased over the timeframe.

“This is a release that shows, somewhat dismally, that industry really did not reduce their products down to the target and timelines that were indicated,” said University of Calgary professor of medicine Norm Campbell.

The Health Canada Sodium Working Group, a federal advisory body of which Campbell was a member in 2010, recommended that average daily sodium intake should be cut to 2,300mg a person, although it is accepted that 1,500mg a day is a good level for maintaining a healthy diet.

However, this new report suggests that 80% of Canadians are still consuming over 2,300mg a day, including 97% of teenage boys and 93% of children aged four to eight. The average consumption for a Canadian citizen is currently around 3,400mg a day.

Processed foods such as breads, processed meat, cheeses, soups and sauces account for 77% of an average individual’s sodium consumption.

“Ingesting excess sodium puts Canadians at risk for high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, stroke and kidney disease,” said Campbell, who is also a founding member of Hypertension Canada. Campbell also revealed that more than 7.5 million Canadians have high blood pressure, of which a third of cases are attributed to high levels of salt in their diet. What’s more, there are over 10,000 deaths related to dietary sodium each year.

A stricter approach

Since sodium reduction targets are currently only voluntary, Health Canada is increasing its attempts to make sodium reduction more enforceable.

“Health Canada is planning to propose a regulatory approach that would require a symbol on the front of packaged foods that are high in sodium, sugars and/or saturated fat,” its report said. “In addition, it may encourage manufacturers of foods in some of the categories to reformulate their products to contain less sodium and, thus, avoid the requirement to display the symbol.”

A statement from Food and Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC) pointed towards the complex nature of the food processing industry and the significant practical challenges to reducing sodium outright: “It is important to remember, however, that lowering sodium levels in food and beverage products is a complex undertaking, a balance between technical feasibility and consumer acceptance, requiring both time and flexibility to achieve.”

The FCPC proposed a four-pronged attack on sodium: reducing sodium in the supply chain, raising awareness and education in schools, research related to sodium reduction and monitoring and evaluation.

Campbell looked at other countries as a model to improve the Canadian system. These include the UK, which focuses on highlighting companies that fail to reduce food sodium levels and threatens them with government regulation, and Argentina, which sets voluntary sodium targets but gives the food industry autonomy on how they go about reducing sodium in food.

“That’s my favourite approach and that’s currently the one that I would recommend to (the government),” Campbell said of Argentina’s tactic. “I think we want our industry to have flexibility, but we also want them to get the job done.”