Assessing the Average Sodium Content of Prepacked Foods with Nutrition Declarations: The Importance of Sales Data

Processed foods are recognized as a major contributor to high dietary sodium intake, associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Different public health actions are being introduced to reduce sodium content in processed foods and sodium intake in general. A gradual reduction of sodium content in processed foods was proposed in Slovenia, but monitoring sodium content in the food supply is essential to evaluate the progress. Our primary objective was to test a new approach for assessing the sales-weighted average sodium content of prepacked foods on the market. We show that a combination of 12-month food sales data provided by food retailers covering the majority of the national market and a comprehensive food composition database compiled using food labelling data represent a robust and cost-effective approach to assessing the sales-weighted average sodium content of prepacked foods. Food categories with the highest sodium content were processed meats (particularly dry cured meat), ready meals (especially frozen pizza) and cheese. The reported results show that in most investigated food categories, market leaders in the Slovenian market have lower sodium contents than the category average. The proposed method represents an excellent tool for monitoring sodium content in the food supply.