Halving salt and fat in foods

Salt, fat and sugar are important causes of many lifestyle-related diseases. Over the last few years, the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Nofima) has been working on this issue with the meat producer Leiv Vidar and the bakery Millba, as part of their participation in the EU project Terifiq.

The project led to knowledge that made it possible to:

• halve the salt and fat content of sausages
• cut the fat and sugar in muffins by a third

Cutting down on these ingredients had to be achieved without compromising taste, food safety and production costs.
"The objective of Terifiq is to reduce the content of several ingredients at the same time. In previous projects, research tended to be limited in that it focused on only one ingredient", says Eva Veiseth-Kent of Nofima.

Better health

Åsbjørn Koller of the sausage manufacturer Leiv Vidar is extremely happy that the research project has helped to achieve such a huge reduction of salt in sausages. High salt content in food is a major cause of cardiovascular diseases.
In the long term, Koller believes that it may be possible to halve the salt content.
At the moment, salt content has been reduced from 2.2 to 1.4 grams. This is while also halving the fat content in their sausages.

"If we adopt a new method of hot-boning, we will reduce the salt content even further", explains Koller.
The WHO's member countries have set a target of cutting global salt intake by 30 per cent by 2025. Another target to be achieved during the same period is to halt the growth in diabetes and obesity. The latter could be achieved by cutting the content of sugar and fat in food.

Siri Evensen at Millba explains that they have succeeded in achieving the target, although the results were achieved using a different method to the one they had planned.

"We achieved the target by cutting out a third of the sugar and fat in our muffins. We would not have achieved this if we hadn't been part of the research project, although we could not use the process and results achieved by the researchers in our baking", says Evensen. However, she is sure that the researchers' results will be applicable in other areas.

Easier to get into the shops

Koller explains that so far, the method has been used in three products. The producer has noticed that the new sausages have made it easier for Leiv Vidar to break into the major food chains and achieve better display positions in the shops.
"If you're not a market leader, it's important to come up with something different. That means that we have to develop our product portfolio", says Koller.
He emphasises that the project has opened up a bigger network for the company in Norway and Europe as a whole.
"The project has been extremely important for us, because it put production development higher on the agenda, and made it easier for us to get our products into more shops", says Koller.

Millba's Siri Evensen is happy with the company's expanded network and improved skills.
"The project has given us the opportunity to learn and develop networks with other industries and companies abroad. We have also learned a lot about how we can perform user tests and sensory analyses, skills which Nofima showed us", says Evensen.

Norwegian version, click here