Australia

Country targets

• Sodium: No mandatory sodium targets as of 2022, but in 2021 voluntary government sodium, sugar and saturated fat targets in place for 15 food categories for 2026
• Sugar: No mandatory sodium targets as of 2022, but in 2021 voluntary government sodium, sugar and saturated fat targets in place for 15 food categories for 2026
• Saturated fat: No mandatory sodium targets as of 2022, but in 2021 voluntary government sodium, sugar and saturated fat targets in place for 15 food categories for 2026

Sodium, sugar, and saturated fat:

Packaged food sampling

Number of products sampled:

• Sodium: 8,434
• Sugar: 2,875
• Saturated fat: 612

Date collected: 2015 – 2017

Nutrient types: sodium, sugar, saturated fat

Methods

Data was obtained from the FoodSwitch database. The FoodSwitch database contains information on packaged foods collected via three processes: annual collection in four of the largest Australian supermarkets in Sydney: Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and Independent Groceries of Australia (IGA); crowd-sourced data from users of the FoodSwitch app; and data provided by the food industry. All nutrient data for foods and beverages are collected from the nutrition information panel and packaging through a series of photographs of the food products.

Food products in the FoodSwitch database were mapped to the Australian government’s Healthy Food Partnership 30 packaged food categories related to sodium, seven categories related to sugar, and five categories related to saturated fat. For each food category, the mean, minimum and maximum values for sodium (mg per 100 g or 100 ml), sugar (g per 100 grams or 100 ml) and saturated fat (g per 100 g) are reported.

Data source

Assessing the Healthy Food Partnership’s Proposed Nutrient Reformulation Targets for Foods and Beverages in Australia

Citation: Rosewarne E, Huang L, Farrand C, et al. Assessing the Healthy Food Partnership’s Proposed Nutrient Reformulation Targets for Foods and Beverages in Australia. Nutrients. 2020;12(5):1346. Published 2020 May 8. doi:10.3390/nu12051346

Contact

Emalie Rosewarne

PhD candidate and Research Assistant, The George Institute for Global Health, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

[email protected]

Institution leading data collection

The George Institute for Global Health, The University of New South Wales (developers of FoodSwitch)