Table 3.
Major packaged food and beverage categories contributing to Australian household purchases of sodium
| Food category rank1 | Food category | Total weight of products purchased (g/d per capita) Mean2 |
Sodium (mg/d per capita) | Mean purchase-weighted sodium content (mg/100 g)3 | Contribution to total weight of sodium purchases (%) | HFP proposed target (Yes/No) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean2 | Median (25th to 75th percentiles) |
||||||
| 1 | Processed meat | 26 | 152 | 111 (53–198) | 703 | 14 | Yes |
| 2 | Bread | 31 | 130 | 103 (54–176) | 451 | 12 | Yes |
| 3 | Sauces | 16 | 125 | 99 (54–161) | 986 | 11 | Yes |
| 4 | Cheese | 15 | 111 | 86 (49–144) | 736 | 10 | Yes |
| 5 | Processed vegetables | 40 | 66 | 42 (20–80) | 212 | 6 | No |
| 6 | Biscuits/cookies | 14 | 59 | 43 (22–77) | 422 | 5 | Yes |
| 7 | Milk | 125 | 55 | 39 (18–75) | 45 | 5 | No |
| 8 | Crisps and snacks | 8 | 46 | 32 (15–60) | 633 | 4 | Yes |
| 9 | Edible oils | 10 | 45 | 30 (14–58) | 409 | 4 | No |
| 10 | Spreads and dips | 6 | 39 | 27 (13–49) | 730 | 3 | No |
| Others | 347 | 317 | 272 (181–398) | 218 | 27 | – | |
1Rank = Food categories are ranked in order of their contribution to the total volume of sodium purchased by Australian households, from highest to lowest. Results for the top 10 food categories are shown separately, with the remaining 57 food categories summed together to simplify data presentation. 2Standard error (SE) for weight of products purchased (g/d per capita) and sodium (mg/d per capita) not displayed as SE ≤0.1 for each mean value. HFP, Healthy Food Partnership. 3Purchase-weighted sodium content (mg/100 g): weight of sodium (mg) divided by the total weight (g) of products purchased (package size x quantity sold in 2018)