National Salt Reduction Initiative

In 2009 New York City launched the National Salt Reduction Initiative (NSRI), a coalition of cities, states, and health organizations that assists food manufacturers and restaurants in voluntarily reducing the amount of salt in their selected product categories by 25 percent over a period of five years. The initiative has received extensive support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Companies that have signed on to the NSRI include Au Bon Pain, Hostess, Kraft Foods, Mars Food, McCain Foods, Snyder’s of Hanover, Starbucks, Subway, and Unilever. Independently, other manufacturers have announced their plans to reduce salt in their products. General Mills, for instance, announced a goal of reducing sodium by 20 percent across multiple product categories by 2015. PepsiCo, the parent company to Frito-Lay, announced it would cut on average 25 percent of the salt in its products; Nestlé has pledged to reduce sodium in its products by 10 percent by 2015.