The analysis, which surveyed 1,387 pizzas, presents a few of the largest culprits of saltiness within the pizza business.
For instance, Domino’s ‘Sizzler Commonplace Mozzarella Stuffed Crust Medium Pizza’ accommodates 21.38g of salt, greater than 3 times the federal government really useful quantity of lower than 6g.
The saltiest grocery store pizza is The Pizza Firm Takeaway Pizza the Pepperoni Occasion’, which accommodates 9.2g of salt, one and a half instances the every day really useful consumption.
By way of the sector as a complete, takeaway chains are the largest culprits with their pizzas containing a mean of double the salt content material of grocery store manufacturers.
Motion on Salt beforehand surveyed the salt content material of pizza in 2014. Many pizzas are literally extra salty now than they had been then. For instance, Domino’s ‘Tandoori Sizzling Commonplace Mozzarella Skinny & Crispy Crust’ jumped from 5.3g of salt in 2014 to a staggering 14.36 now.
Some corporations, corresponding to Pizza Categorical, Dr. Oetker and Goodfella’s, have manged to chop down their salt content material (Goodfella’s have decreased by 29%). Nonetheless, based on Motion on Salt, the excessive salt content material stays a significant concern.
Salt as a killer
Salt is one thing that in giant portions can considerably hurt human well being. However why is it so unhealthy?
“Consuming an excessive amount of salt causes raised blood stress, which in flip is the most important threat issue for cardiovascular ailments like coronary heart assaults and stroke – chargeable for one in 4 deaths within the UK,” Hattie Burt, Senior Coverage and Worldwide Tasks Officer at Motion on Salt, advised FoodNavigator.
“Excessive salt consumption can be linked to kidney illness, osteoporosis and abdomen most cancers.”
Why is that this harmful? The reply is linked to the water content material in our our bodies. “Salt makes our our bodies maintain onto water,” Burt advised us. “Once we eat an excessive amount of salt, the additional water in our blood means there’s additional stress on blood vessel partitions, elevating blood stress.
“When blood stress is persistently excessive, it places pressure on the arteries. Over time, this could result in the event of atherosclerosis, which is the build-up of fatty plaques within the arteries.
“These plaques can slender the arteries, or break off, and limit blood move to the center and mind, rising the danger of coronary heart assaults and strokes.”
Round 3m deaths every year world wide are linked to salt consumption.
A matter of nationwide concern
Once they launched their analysis, Motion on Salt known as on the UK authorities, notably Well being Secretary Steve Barclay and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, to do extra to cut back salt content material in meals.
Efforts have been made to cut back salt in meals earlier than, however, based on Motion on Salt, the programme has fallen by the wayside.
“Within the early 2000s, the UK carried out a voluntary salt discount programme,” Burt advised us, “with the federal government setting incremental salt targets for the meals business to work in the direction of to step by step cut back salt ranges throughout greater than 80 meals classes.
“By 2011, salt ranges in most merchandise had fallen by 20-40%, with no reported affect on gross sales. On the identical time common salt consumption, blood stress and deaths from heart problems fell.”
Since then, the programme stopped being enforced successfully. Whereas up to date salt targets have been set for 2024, many corporations will not be assembly them and, because the analysis reveals, salt content material is even rising in some merchandise.
“It’s now recognised, by the World Well being Group and others, {that a} necessary method is the one technique to see actual enhancements,” Burt advised us.
“It’s time for the UK authorities to usher in legislated targets for salt – as a number of different international locations have already carried out . . . We can’t afford to proceed on the present trajectory.”
One other suggestion that Burt suggests is increasing the sugary drinks levy, which eliminated 47,000 tonnes of sugar from UK comfortable drinks yearly between 2015 and 2019, to merchandise with salt in them.
“A tiered salt levy ought to incentivise reformulation in an identical technique to the Mushy Drinks Business Levy,” she advised us, “with the added benefit for producers is that decreasing salt, particularly in stable meals, is way less complicated than decreasing sugar content material, and normally doesn’t require a substitute ingredient.”
The long run for enterprise
The well being incentive is evident, however what’s the enterprise incentive?
“Pizza producers have a number of scope to cut back salt content material of their meals, with out affecting gross sales – in actual fact with out shoppers even noticing!” Burt advised us.
“As our analysis reveals, many pizzas now have extra salt than they did in 2014, and there’s a lot of variation within the salt content material of comparable pizzas. Which means that the viability of much less excessively salty pizzas has already been confirmed.
“We’re not asking for adjustments requiring ground-breaking know-how, merely that corporations producing saltier pizzas cut back salt content material to carry them in step with decrease salt choices already in the marketplace.”
Thinner bases, smaller slices of toppings corresponding to pepperoni, and even step by step diminished portion sizes could be a path in the direction of much less salt.
There are, in fact, case research to indicate how efficient this salt discount will be, with producers corresponding to Goodfellas decreasing their salt content material. Does this have an effect on enterprise?
“Not one of the manufactures that we spoke to advised us that decreasing salt of their pizzas had negatively impacted gross sales.” Burt advised us.
“This isn’t shocking – even comparatively giant reductions in salt content material go unnoticed by shoppers, so gross sales are unaffected.
“These corporations have clearly determined that it makes good enterprise sense to make more healthy merchandise – we simply want others to observe go well with.”
