Table 4.

Salt reduction policy and industrial practice

Sub-theme	Policy-makers		Food industries
	Salt reduction policy	Example of quotes	Industrial practice	Example of quotes
Reducing salt in food and food products	The MOH has promoted the salt reduction in the Malaysian Dietary Guideline	“…under the Malaysian Dietary Guideline Message No. 9 there is about less salt… (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 3, WPM)	There are food industries that use salt substitutes/alternatives and technologies to reduce salt in the processed foods. However, there were some food industries do not have initiative to reduce the salt in their food products	“So far, we haven’t done reduction…”(Female, Food Industry/Soy sauce, EPM) “…replace part of the sodium with potassium…” (Male, Food Industry/Sauce, WPM) “…If I use anchovy, I will not add salt… (Female, Food Industry/Processed Food 1, EPM) “…I use retort…for this technology, we don’t have to use preservative…” (Female, Food Industry/Processed Food 2, EM)
Sodium labelling	The mandatory salt labelling has been gazetted in 2020	“…in July 2020 we have gazetted amendment on food regulation to make a declaration of sodium a mandatory.” (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 3, WPM)	Sodium is being labelled on most processed foods, frozen foods, baby foods, beverages and fast foods but not on food products that being sold in bulk	“…we make according to US standard, so need to have sodium content…” (Male, Food Industry/Beverage, NPM) “…we sell in bulk… so we don’t label because our reseller will repack…” (Male, Food Industry/Wholes Seller Snacks, WPM)
Food reformulation	The government has engaged the food industries to reformulate the food products	“…actually in 2018… Amendment of the salt regulation on soy sauce from 10 to 7% was gazetted” (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 3, WPM)	There were also food industries that have reformulated their food product to reduce the salt content	“… for 25 kg flour, I used 1.5 kg salt. Then I did R&D to reduce the salt. Now I just use 400 g…” (Male, Food Industry/Noodle, EM)
Training	The MOH have conducted Health Catering Training to teach the cooks on salt reduction in cooking	“…we have been conducting ‘Health Catering’ training…We teach the food operators to reduce salt in foods…” (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 2, WPM)	The food industries have attended the training conducted by the government to use salt in appropriate amount	“…when I attended course by FAMA, the officer said that I can add more salt to increase shelf life, but don’t follow my preference…as more salts would increase saltiness and increase cost too” (Female, Food Industry/Processed Food 2, EPM)
Awareness campaign	The MOH together with the non-governmental organizations have conducted the salt reduction campaign	“…we work closely with the Ministry of Health in their campaign to reduce salt intake…” (Female, Policy Maker/NGO 1, WPM)
Recognition and incentives	Healthier Choice Logo and MyChoice Logo were given to healthy foods while BESS-Bersih (clean), Selamat (safe) and Sihat (healthy) certificate were granted to premises that provide healthy foods	“.…one of the criteria in the Healthier Choice Logo for certain food is the salt (sodium) …” (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 2, WPM) “… MyChoice Logo, the requirements are reduced sugar, reduced salt… (Female, Policy Maker/Researcher 7, WPM) “… we have a certification called BESS…” (Female, Policy Maker/Ministry 3, WPM)