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The following is issued on behalf of the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food:
The Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food (the Committee) recommends the Government to implement three measures to further cultivate a culture of low-salt-and-sugar diets in the community to improve public health.
The measures are namely, promoting healthy eating for young children, rolling out the front-of-pack low-salt-and-sugar labelling scheme for pre-packaged food, and further implementing the "calorie" indication pilot scheme in the staff canteens of public hospitals, while also conducting consumer surveys and studies on the pilot scheme.
The Chairperson of the Committee, Mr Bernard Chan, today (June 30) put forth the above measures after attending the prize presentation ceremony of the Junior Chefs' Culinary Ideas of Salt and Sugar Reduction Competition. The competition was organised by the Centre for Food safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and the Education Bureau, and co-organised by the Committee, the Chinese Culinary Institute and the Committee on Home-School Co-operation.
"The Committee considers that, to achieve the goal of reducing salt and sugar intake on a community-wide basis, we should as a first step move along the three directions of 'starting from an early age', enhancing transparency of information, and strengthening publicity and education. These will help cultivating a culture of low-salt-and-sugar diets, stimulating consumers' demand for low-salt-and-sugar diets, and providing impetus for the trade to expedite the pace in reducing the salt and sugar content of food. The proposed measures are in line with these directions," Mr Chan said.
The Committee proposes to strengthen the promotion of healthy eating for young children through the Department of Health's "StartSmart@school. hk" Campaign, targeting at pre-primary institutions. More training courses should be organised for the cooks of pre-primary institutions to demonstrate how to prepare tasty low-salt-and-sugar dishes. Also, training should be provided to teachers to strengthen their knowledge on salt and sugar. More recipes with low-salt-and-sugar content should be made available to pre-primary institutions. Sharing of each other's recipes should be encouraged among pre-primary institutions. Also, parents and children should be encouraged to cook low-salt-and-sugar dishes or snacks together.
The Committee considers that the proposed front-of-pack low-salt-and-sugar labelling scheme for pre-packaged food will help consumers identify low-salt-and-sugar products easily and make informed choices. The Committee wishes that the scheme will serve as a catalyst for the trade to provide more varieties of low-salt-and-sugar products for consumers. The relevant working group under the Committee and the CFS will liaise with the trade to work out the guidelines and details of the scheme, with a view to ensuring that the scheme will take into account the trade's concerns on operational and technical matters.
"To enhance public awareness and support of the front-of-pack 'low-salt-and-sugar' labelling scheme, we will organise a logo design competition later this year. Members of the public will be invited to design 'low-salt-low-sugar' logos for Hong Kong. Also, we will invite the trade to be adjudicators. With the participation of the public and the trade, we will be able to select a design which will be acceptable to the trade on the one hand, and will facilitate consumers to choose the appropriate type of food on the other hand," Mr Chan added.
With the support and concerted efforts of the Hospital Authority (HA), the "calorie" indication pilot scheme will be implemented at the staff canteens of public hospitals first. By July this year, more than 80 per cent of the staff canteens of public hospitals, i.e. 20 canteens, will indicate the calorie of selective dishes on their menus.
Further implementing the "calorie" indication scheme in the staff canteens of public hospitals has the positive effect of encouraging other restaurants to join the scheme. A considerable number of the operators of these canteens are leading restaurant chain groups. These restaurant chain groups may leverage on the experience from those staff canteens which they operate and implement similar measures in their other restaurants. This will lay the foundation for further expansion of the "calorie" indication pilot scheme.
Surveys will be conducted to collect the views of customers of those canteens, with a view to assessing how the indication of calories on the dishes affects their mode of behaviour. This will help the Committee consider how best to further enhance the effectiveness of the scheme.
"Given the sheer number of restaurants in Hong Kong, and the diversity in the types of food being sold and the modes of operation, we understand that it is an ambitious project to implement the "calorie" indication scheme widely, and cannot be achieved in one go. We have to consider carefully how to implement the scheme, the possible difficulties faced by the trade, how to tackle these difficulties and how to encourage the trade to take part in the scheme," Mr Chan added.
Mr Chan said the above measures are the first step of the work of the Committee. The Committee will continue to review the effectiveness of the measures and enhance them in both breadth and depth as appropriate. Also, the Committee will consider further measures, with a view to drawing the whole community to more actively participate in the reduction of salt and sugar intake.
Ends/Thursday, June 30, 2016
Issued at HKT 21:07
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