Loblaw slashing salt across Presidents Choice lineup
Loblaw Companies Ltd., Brampton, Ontario, announced an accelerated plan to reduce sodium levels across its President’s Choice line of products. The President's Choice private brand includes more than 3,800 products across the fresh, frozen and dry grocery categories.
Loblaw noted that it began its sodium-reduction mandate in 2010. In the past four years, the company has eliminated nearly 150,000 kilograms of sodium across 471 products under its President's Choice, no name, Farmer's Market and other brands. It also has introduced hundreds of new products with lowered sodium levels.
The new accelerated plan calls for the company to reduce sodium levels by 20 percent across 400 products within the President's Choice line in 2014 and 2015. The program will include a focus on categories that have traditionally posed the greatest challenge for salt reduction, including sauces, dressings and bakery items, Loblaw said.
"It used to be that the tastiness of a snack or meal could be measured in its saltiness — its sodium content, said Executive Chairman Galen G. Weston, Speaking at the annual general meeting of Loblaw Companies on May 1. “To some degree that hasn't changed. And while many Canadians have learned to better control their own salt shaker, food manufacturers still wield an industrial-sized shaker, controlling the unseen sodium that seasons the Canadian diet.”