Working hard to make food healthier
Brakes continuously reviews and improves its products wherever possible,
and we work closely with many organisations including the Food Standards Agency (FSA), The Department of Health (DOH) and the School Food Trust (SFT) on a number of important health and nutrition issues.
Developing
Our specialist team keeps up-to-date with all the latest issues regarding diet and health so we can develop and refine our extensive range of products. The following are examples of the successes we have had so far:
Salt reduction
Brakes has been gradually reducing salt in many of its own brand products in line with the targets set by the FSA.
We are committed to continuing this work and salt reduction forms a key part of our ongoing product development programme. In the first two years of the programme we removed over 100 tonnes of salt. Now, in our ongoing salt reduction programme, we have 70% of product sales meeting the FSA’s 2010 salt target.
Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (HVOs)
HVOs can be a major source of industrial trans fats, and consumption of these fats should be very limited. Brakes has removed HVOs from all own brand products.
Artificial colours
We prohibit the use of artificial colours in children’s products and we are working on the complete removal of these colours from our entire own brand range where technically possible.
5-A-DAY
We support the ‘5-A-DAY’ programme, presenting the logo in our product lists, brochures and on packaging, to encourage our customers to use and serve more fruit and vegetables in their recipes and menus.
Nutrition labelling
Our nutrition labelling provides information on; energy, protein, carbohydrate, sugar, fat, saturated fat, fibre, sodium and salt equivalent.
Guideline daily amounts (GDA)
Brakes front of house products all carry information on GDA to highlight the nutritional content in a simple, easy to understand format. This provides consumers with extremely useful information to help them make informed decisions on their dietary requirements.
