With consumer demand for foods to be contain less salt, food businesses often struggle with trying to maintain flavour because salt is a recognised and relatively cheap flavour enhancer.

However, describing a food as salty has a different meaning now to that in the past and also to different people.

To help with this, a flavour company has just developed a sensory language to use when it is describing salt in foods. It is the result of much research using specially trained taste panels. It is using this lanuage to assist them when developing new flavours for their clients, whilst helping them reduce the sodium content of their foods.

Salt has long been used as a food preservative due to it's ability to reduce bacterial growth. Reducing salt therefore, has distinct food safety implications.

Food authorities around the world are continuing to assess whether reducing salt levels, and particularly sodium content, is required and is, in fact, safe.