• Earlier this month, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit with a mission to improve public health through better nutrition and safer food, petitioned FDA to take various actions to reduce sodium in food, including finalizing a 10-year target for sodium reduction in processed, packaged, and prepared foods.

• CSPI has a history of pushing FDA to take action on sodium reduction. FDA’s 2016 draft guidance with voluntary 2- and 10-year sodium reduction targets for processed, packaged, and prepared foods was issued in response to a petition and subsequent lawsuit by CSPI.  In 2021 FDA issued a final guidance document which established voluntary 2.5-year sodium targets for processed, packaged, and prepared foods to reduce average daily sodium intake to 3,000 mg/day, but it did not finalize a 10-year target, establish intermediate reduction steps, or describe how industry compliance would be monitored.

• CPSI’s latest petition requests that FDA:

  • Issue final guidance identifying a voluntary 10-year sodium-reduction target in processed, packaged, and prepared foods by April 2025.

  • Simultaneously establish an intermediate voluntary sodium reduction target.

  • Publish a plan which details how industry compliance with the voluntary targets will be monitored.

  • Identify products which are the largest contributors to sodium intake and maintain a public database of these products.

• CSPI argues that the lack of intermediate or long-term targets has led to industry uncertainty and that the failure to establish such targets will hamper progress in reducing the levels of sodium in the food supply. However, we note that FDA has taken other recent action on reducing sodium levels, including proposing changes to standards of identity to allow for salt substitutes. We will continue to monitor and report on FDA’s action regarding sodium reduction.

Lauren Haas, Frederick Stearns, and Emily Thomas also contributed to this article.