The Food and Drink Federation says its members’ products now contribute 18% less salt, 19% less sugar, and 17% fewer calories to the British grocery market than they did in 2021.
The figures appear in the FDF’s latest Shaping a Healthier Future work, which tracks reformulation, healthier product development, and changes in the nutritional contribution of branded food and drink products. The organisation said the average Nutrient Profiling Model score of member products has improved by 13% over the same period.
Food and drink manufacturers have been reducing salt, sugar, and calories through recipe reformulation, portion changes, new product development, and lighter product ranges. Examples cited by the FDF include changes to Kellogg’s All-Bran, sugar reductions across Danone UK and Ireland’s Actimel ranges, and Premier Foods’ Mr Kipling Delicious & Light range.
Reformulation remains technically demanding because salt, sugar, and fat influence more than the front-of-pack nutrition panel. They affect taste, preservation, texture, processing behaviour, shelf life, and consumer acceptance, so large-scale recipe changes have to satisfy production, regulatory, and commercial requirements at the same time.
Kate Halliwell, Chief Scientific Officer at The Food and Drink Federation, said: “Food and drink manufacturers are committed to supporting consumers make healthier choices which will help improve diets. They’ve invested hundreds of millions of pounds over many years in changing products that shoppers know and love to make them healthier as well as appealing to shoppers. And this latest data shows that tremendous positive progress continues to be made.
“Now we need government support to take it to the next level. Maintaining a stable regulatory environment will give businesses the confidence they need to keep making investments in the development of healthier products.”
The FDF is urging government to pause proposed changes to the Nutrient Profiling Model, arguing that revised rules could restrict advertising for some reformulated products that have been developed as healthier alternatives. Instead, the trade body wants faster progress on mandatory reporting of healthier food sales data across the food sector.
Under such a reporting system, companies would publish standardised data on the health profile of food sales, creating a more consistent basis for measuring progress across manufacturers, retailers, and potentially hospitality operators. That approach would place greater emphasis on sales-weighted change across the market, rather than judging product development through advertising eligibility alone.
Manufacturers are already balancing health targets with price sensitivity, ingredient availability, production constraints, and changing consumer habits. A stable policy framework would give companies more confidence to invest in reformulation programmes whose commercial returns often depend on scale, repetition, and long-term consumer acceptance.
More information is available through the FDF’s Shaping a Healthier Future campaign.
