Popular packaged sliced bread in UK contains unnecessary amounts of salt, says campaigner
Action on Salt is urging the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to follow other countries around the world by setting mandatory salt reduction targets to create a level playing field across the food industry and reduce the thousands of people dying and suffering needlessly from strokes and heart disease.
Research by Action on Salt, the scientific expert group based at Queen Mary University of London, has found popular packaged sliced bread sold in UK supermarkets contain unnecessary amounts of salt, with some breads saltier per serve than 2x small portions of McDonald’s French fries.
Salt is a major factor that raises blood pressure. In the UK, over 60 loaves of bread bought per person per year. According to the experts, eEven small reductions in the salt content of bread will have a significant impact on public health. For example – a 6% reduction in the average salt content of bread would remove 926 tonnes of salt from the UK diet per year.
Of the 242 sliced breads surveyed in-store, three in four were found to contain as much salt or more per slice than a packet of ready salted crisps! The saltiest culprit was Hovis White Loaf with starter dough, containing 1.48g/100g – nearly three times more salt than the lowest, Waitrose Rye and Wheat Dark Sourdough Bread(0.51g/100g), the researchers said.
While the majority of breads fall below the 2024 maximum salt target as set by the Department of Health and Social Care in 2020x, the experts are convinced the large variations in salt “make it clear that the targets are far too lenient, with scope for further reductions”.
Previous research on bread suggests salt content has been reduced by 8% since 2011xi, with some notable reductions for particular loaves of bread. These include Vogels Original Mixed Grain, Vogels Soya & Linseed and Schneider Brot Organic Sunflower Seed Bread (Table 2). Worryingly, some appear to have increased in salt since 2011, including Sainsbury’s Medium Wholemeal, up 19% (0.74g/100g in 2011 vs 0.88g/100g in 2023).
Sheena Bhageerutty, assistant nutritionist at Action on Salt reiterated the campaigners stance when she said bread is the single biggest contributor of salt to diets.
“Therefore even the smallest of reductions in salt would go a long way for our health. This is why we urgently need companies to double down their efforts to reduce salt further and make salt reduction a priority,” she added.
Sonia Pombo, campaign lead at Action on Salt said: “Our survey clearly demonstrates the huge variation in the salt content of bread and shows how easy it would be for those companies lagging behind to immediately reformulate. The time to obfuscate is over – action is needed now. The Government can no longer sit on their hands and do nothing when so many thousands of lives could be saved.”
Professor Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Queen Mary University of London and shairman of Action on Salt said reducing salt is the most cost-effective measure to lower blood pressure and reduce the number of people dying and suffering from strokes and heart disease.
“It’s therefore a disgrace that food companies continue to fill our food with so much unnecessary salt, as shown here in bread. For too long the food industry have been in charge of public health, at our expense; it’s time for the Government to stop letting people die needlessly,” MacGregror stated.