Over the past decades, consumers, retailers, and regulators have grown increasingly aware of the detrimental health effects associated with high sodium intake. This refers to another challenge within the traditional snacks market: lowering sodium, while keeping great taste.

Companies in the snacks industry - encounter additional challenges beyond delivering great tasting snacks and sodium reduced snacks to consumers. Upcoming mandatory front-of-pack labelling and government initiatives concerning sodium content in food as well as salt taxes are stimulating snack manufactures to reduce sodium in their formulations, inevitably posing technical and formulation challenges to keep texture, appearance, and processing parameters.

WHO Member states adopted a voluntary global target of 30% reduction in mean population salt intake by 2025 and a lot of countries[2][3] are actively implementing strategies and initiatives to achieve this goal, including public awareness campaigns, food labelling regulations, and collaboration with food industry stakeholders.

Given salt’s affordability, substituting salt in formulations could potentially lead to rising manufacturing costs.

[2] Wilson N. (2004). Salt tax could reduce population’s salt intake. Brit. Med. J. (Clinical research ed.,) 329,7471: 918

[3] Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute, Salt and Health – What is being done globally to reduce salt intake, Feb 2024