IN Brief:
- FDF data shows member products contributing 18% less salt, 19% less sugar, and 17% fewer calories to the British grocery market than in 2021.
- The average Nutrient Profiling Model score of FDF member products improved by 13% between 2021 and 2025.
- The federation is urging government to pause planned NPM changes and move faster on mandatory reporting of healthier food sales.
The Food and Drink Federation is urging government to rethink planned changes to the Nutrient Profiling Model after new data showed continuing reformulation progress across branded food and drink products.
FDF member products now contribute 18% less salt, 19% less sugar, and 17% fewer calories to the British grocery market than in 2021. The data also shows a 13% improvement in the average Nutrient Profiling Model score of member products over the same period, with the score falling from 3.8 in 2021 to 3.3 in 2025. Lower scores indicate healthier products, while foods scoring above four are classed as less healthy.
The federation is calling for government to pause planned NPM changes and bring forward mandatory reporting of healthier food sales across the sector. A standardised reporting framework would create a more transparent way to measure progress while encouraging companies to continue developing healthier products.
Nutrient profiling has moved from policy detail into core product strategy. It affects advertising eligibility, promotional access, product development priorities, retailer conversations, category management, and reformulation investment. A change in scoring can alter the commercial position of products that manufacturers have already spent years adjusting.
Reformulation rarely involves one simple substitution. Reducing sugar, salt, saturated fat, or calories can affect texture, sweetness perception, viscosity, water activity, microbial stability, bake performance, shelf life, colour, cost, allergen status, and consumer acceptance. In categories such as bakery, confectionery, cereals, yoghurt, sauces, snacks, and ready meals, the technical system is often finely balanced.
A reduced-sugar cake may need changes to fibres, bulking agents, emulsifiers, flavours, processing conditions, and shelf-life validation. A lower-salt sauce may need changes to acidity, preservation, flavour masking, and thermal processing. These adjustments take development time, factory trials, nutritional analysis, sensory testing, packaging updates, and retailer approval.
Regulatory stability therefore has a direct influence on investment. Manufacturers can commit capital and technical resource to nutritional improvement, but they need confidence that work will remain commercially useful once recipes reach the market. If a reformulated product still becomes restricted under a revised model, the incentive to invest in marginal but meaningful improvement weakens.
Mandatory healthier sales reporting would shift attention from product-by-product classification towards measurable market outcomes. A reporting system could show whether businesses are increasing healthier product sales across portfolios rather than relying on isolated reformulation examples. It would also make comparisons possible across manufacturing, retail, and potentially out-of-home channels.
That approach would bring its own technical burden. Sales reporting would require robust product classification, data governance, portfolio analysis, and internal accountability. Larger businesses may be able to absorb those requirements more easily than SMEs, which could need support with nutrition data, product scoring, reformulation trials, and compliance systems.
Support for smaller manufacturers is already appearing in targeted schemes. FDF Scotland’s HFSS reformulation funding round offered support for trial ingredients, nutritional analysis, recipe software, and specialist consultancy ahead of Scotland’s promotion and placement restrictions. The latest FDF data places that kind of work within a national portfolio shift.
The ingredients market is also being pulled into the reformulation cycle. Rising fibre demand and the formulation race showed how healthier positioning is driving technical interest in fibres, prebiotics, and functional ingredients. Nutrient profiling changes could accelerate that movement if scoring rules reward achievable improvements without pushing manufacturers into technically weak product design.
Manufacturers are now balancing public-health policy against the realities of test cycles, scale-up trials, sensory work, shelf-life validation, packaging updates, and retailer approval. The FDF’s data points to measurable progress. The next policy step will decide whether reformulation remains an investable manufacturing strategy or becomes another layer of uncertainty in already tight product economics.
