Council chiefs have urged restaurants and pubs to ‘stop dragging their heels’ and commit to salt reduction targets.
According to the Local Government Association (LGA), only one restaurant group and a single fast food chain have committed to Department of Health (DoH) voluntary targets to cut salt in popular high street dishes - despite goals being launched almost five months ago.
One person is thought to die every six minutes from a heart attack in the UK and councils are calling for strong action to tackle excessive salt intake.
Recommended targets from the DoH encourage people to consume no more than 6g of salt per day. Yet latest targets suggest a maximum of 6g of salt for just one portion.
Cllr Katie Hall, Chair of the LGA's Community Wellbeing Board, said some restaurant and pub meals have been found to contain as much as 9g of salt.
‘Excessive salt is a major killer and not enough is being done to tackle it. Despite new targets set by government to bring restaurants in line with the rest of industry, they are lagging a long way behind. We think this is totally unacceptable,’ Hall said.
‘We need to tackle head-on excessive levels of salt in foods and the big high street restaurants and pubs chains need to get on board and commit swiftly.
‘Many supermarkets have signed up to similar salt reduction government targets, which makes the reluctance of the restaurants even more surprising and indefensible.
‘Government statistics show thousands of deaths from salt-related health issues like high blood pressure and strokes could be saved, along with hundreds of millions of pounds to the public health purse. This issue needs to be addressed by everyone in the food industry, quickly, comprehensively and – above all – robustly.’
The LGA applauded the efforts of Gateshead, Liverpool and Derbyshire to reduce salt use in local restaurants, take-aways and fish and chip shops.
