Asia Pacific (APAC) region is identified as the region with the highest consumption of salty products from snacks to preserved fruits, instant food/noodle, sauces and condiments to food cuisines where salt represents an essential flavor component.
APAC also ranks first in the savory/salty snacks category launches accounting for 44% share of the global market. This could be good news to business, but can also be translated as negative news for health experts as ‘salty’ is often connoted as ‘unhealthy’ with high contents of salt, MSGs and artificial seasonings in snacks. In terms of sales value, APAC is also the dominant market with 32% share of the savory/salty snacks sales in 2023. (see Chart 1.0)
High consumption of salt could be the contributory cause to rising cases of hypertension, heart disease and stroke in the region. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended limit of 5g of salt per day, has led to governments urging food manufacturers to reduce the level of salt in their food products.
In Malaysia, as an example, the average daily consumption of 10.5g of salt has already far exceeded WHO guidelines.
As consumers are becoming more health-conscious, manufacturers are rapidly adjusting their food ingredient contents to meet this rising demand. Nevertheless, this could pose a challenge in terms of product formulation, as altering salt content without replacing it with something of similar profile, could affect the overall taste and appeal of the end product. In addition, manufacturers also need to be mindful of their respective countries’ health and clean label requirements when formulating their products.
In recent years, yeast extract has become the preferred natural salt replacement. According to Euromonitor data, yeast extract was used in 41% of new food & beverage product launches with a reduced/low/no sodium claim (see Chart 2.0). The reason why food manufacturers are using yeast extract is its clean-label status apart from its ability to offer that ‘umami’ flavor while providing the much-needed savory profile to snacks and other packaged food products.
Meanwhile, the World Instant Noodle Association (WINA) has recently adopted the Manila Declaration, which sets voluntary targets, one of which is the reduction of salt content in their products.
WINA projected demand for instant noodles to reach at least 120 billion servings in 2025. Top consumer market is China (including HK) with 42.21 billion servings followed by Indonesia (14.54 billion), India (8.68 billion), Vietnam (8.13 billion), Japan (5.84 billion), and the US (5.1 billion).
In this year’s summit held in the Philippines, Monde Nissin, the host for the summit, emphasised that it has been reducing the salt content of its noodle brand ‘Lucky Me!’. According to Henry Soesanto, CEO of Monde Nissin, “Salt is used to perk up the taste. But if you reduce it, people should not notice it. So, little by little we are reducing it.” Soesanto added that the company has reduced the salt content of its product by more than the WINA target of 10% by 2030. Demand for its instant noodle is still growing despite the flavor adjustment.
Imagine what will this mean to APAC in terms of ‘health’, if instant noodle companies start to reduce, replace or remove their salt contents, as instant noodle is often consumed by low- to middle-income earners in China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam as part of their staple diet. In many other Asian countries, instant noodle is a favourite convenience meal especially for individuals with busy work lifestyles.
Food manufacturers should not be afraid of losing customers by reducing their salt contents. With proper consumer education, proper product reformulation and cleaner labelling, they could be retaining existing customers while also winning new ones.
