Food Matters Live Podcast · Food Matters Live

The HFSS Challenge - Innovation, Consumer Reality and Industry Progress

·45 min·2 clips

Health alone will not convert a shopper: only two percent of healthy servings are for health only.

1. The Food Matters Live Podcast episode 'The HFSS Challenge', recorded live at Ascot in October 2025, examines UK high fat, salt and sugar regulation through three talks lasting about 45 minutes. 2. Host Anthony Zahra introduces Anand Merchandani, senior application technologist at Symrise, Chantelle Kenoff, head of public sector nutrition at World Panel by Numerator, and Kate Harrington of the Food & Drink Federation. 3. The central question is whether products can be made healthier without losing taste, texture and consumer appeal, with each speaker approaching it from a different angle. 4. Merchandani describes a customer brief to cut sodium in a bouillon by 25%, solved with 'Taste Design', a model that reduced 26 formulations to 12 sensory samples before consumer testing. 5. Kenoff reports that the share of baskets from HFSS products fell from about 41% in 2021 to 39.5%, and that the average Nutrient Profile Model score in 14 legislated categories dropped from 4.95 to 4.71. 6. She adds that volume deals on HFSS categories account for only 6.2% of sales, and that 4% of GB households have a GLP-1 user, almost double the previous year. 7. Kenoff says ultra-processed food was shoppers' top concern, with 63% of those who knew the term planning to reduce consumption, while scratch cooking is at an all-time low and 30% of launches fail within two years. 8. Harrington traces policy from voluntary salt targets in 2006 through the 2016-2017 sugar and calorie programmes and the 2018 soft drinks levy to HFSS placement rules in October 2022 and advertising rules applied voluntarily from 1 October 2025. 9. She says FDF members cut salt and sugar by a third and calories by a quarter in ten years, her action on fiber initiative led to about 400 products and 1.5 billion servings, and Doritos is now classified non-HFSS. 10. Suited to food product developers, reformulation specialists and policy-minded industry professionals.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Food Matters Live Podcast