There has been a report out this week suggesting smaller companies are not really aware of the implications of reducing salt in particular on the shelf life of their products. The safety of each reformulated food should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Reducing salt by less than a third in a mayonnaise might halve its shelf-life. For products such as bacon and ham, reducing salt without making other changes to compensate might mean manufacturers need to reduce the shelf-life from eight days to just three. Campden BRI use modelling techniques enabling firms to predict how a reduced salt product would behave over its shelf-life after factoring in a range of variables (storage temperatures, pH, water activity, preservatives, temperature) and these are being used to predict the impact of reformulation on shelf-life and food safety. Predictive microbiology uses mathematics to predict the response of micro-organisms to a given environment, there is however no substitute for actual shelf life verification.
The Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food (ACMSF) is urging the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to work more closely with manufacturers to ensure that reformulation programmes are accompanied by rigorous shelf life testing. The FSA and the British Meat Processors’ Association have produced a guidance document for small and medium sized businesses on the microbiological risks associated with salt reduction. Industry responses to salt targets for 2012 reflect some anxiety over the growth of spoilage organisms in meat and Listeria in fat spreads with very low salt levels.