These are troubling times for the industry. Some of its ills seem self-inflicted. You have to ask yourself: why out-of-town development continues unabated despite the much observed declines in out-of-town sales why there seems so little strategy behind many kneejerk price promotions and why suppliers are prepared to engage in a volume and share-obsessed race to the bottom, instead of actually innovating?

But with the economy showing little signs of a pulse, nothing I saw in the government’s Budget persuades me it will help to drive sales forward in the near or even medium term.

And I am just as concerned about the lack of clarity from the government when it comes to health.

” Our industry is suffering from health regulation fatigue, or as it should henceforth be known, a salt and battery”

Adam Leyland, Editor

The food and drink industry has been suffering from a health regulation onslaught for some time. But after the Labour government’s stick, the coalition promised a little more carrot and, with its nudgestopic, a lot of progress has been made.

So when the DH suspended its 2012 salt-reduction targets, in January, I saw it as a positive step, and a rare example of a government listening. I was wrong. In a move that can best be described as a salt and battery, last week, the DH reduced the threshold for a ‘red’ traffic light by a seismic 25% (The Grocer, 23 March).

To impose this new level after so much work has been done to lower salt in so many areas must feel like a kick in the teeth. But the business implications are much more serious. How is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector supposed to be a beacon of innovation, entrepreneurship and tax-generation if regulation can change at the drop of a hat?

The industry will do everything it can to explore new salt-reduction technologies - just as it is exploring stevia as another sugar-free sweetener - but the level of tinkering and interference that is taking place in the name of ‘responsibility’ is ridiculous, as the latest demands surrounding sat fat reduction measures shows. What about the government’s ‘responsibility’ towards a sustainable business framework?

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