An exploration of progress made in the reformulation of food staples in the Republic of Ireland.

Abstract

One hundred and eleven countries currently have national policies, strategies or plans to implement food reformulation, a mechanism to passively improve the diets of consumers. Previous research by our group conducted between 2014 and 2017, showed that salt and sugar in - cereals, breads, spreads and milk had declined by 12% and 7%, respectively. The aim of this study was to explore if there has been further progress in reformulation during the period between 2017 and 2021.We conducted an audit of food staples in the Republic of Ireland. Nutrition labels of food staples were photographed and the extracted data was compared with data previously captured in 2017. We included Supermarkets with the leading market share in the Republic of Ireland at that time including - Dunnes Stores, Supervalu, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Marks & Spencer (M&S) and Centra. Two hundred and seventy products were directly compared across the two-time points (2017 & 2021). Overall across all food groups combined, this study shows that salt decreased by 1.9%, sugar levels decreased by 4.9% and saturated fat decreased by 0.1%. Total fat increased by 1.2%, protein increased by 1.1%, energy levels increased by 0.6%, fibre increased by 0.2% and carbohydrates increased by 0.1%. While it is encouraging to see that sugar has declined across all food groups and that salt has declined across most food groups in this study, the magnitude in reduction is lower than during the previous reporting period (2014-2017). Food manufacturers need to double down on their reformulation efforts.