SINGAPORE, June 22 — Having made significant inroads in curbing sugar and saturated fat, Singapore is now turning its sights toward a new dietary enemy: sodium.

The Singapore Health Promotion Board (HPB) is gearing up for a major campaign in the final quarter of 2026, aiming to normalise the habit of consumers asking for less salt and fewer sauces in their meals.

The goal is simple: make healthier choices the instinctive one.

“We need to have this ‘normalising ask’, and when more people ask for it, maybe (at) some point in future, we can do low sodium by default,” HPB Chief Executive Tay Choon Hong told The Straits Times.

Tay is drawing a parallel to the “siu dai by default” movement launched in September 2023. That initiative targeted sugar-sweetened beverages, the primary source of dietary sugar in the city-state, by encouraging food and beverage operators to make "siu dai" (less sugar) the standard.

This push, paired with the Nutri-Grade labelling scheme introduced in late 2022, has already shifted consumer habits. Under the system, drinks are graded A to D based on sugar and saturated fat content, with Grade D beverages facing a total advertising ban.

The results speak for themselves. In 2017, only 37 per cent of pre-packaged beverages sold would have earned an A or B grade. By 2024, that figure nearly doubled to 73 per cent. This success earned Singapore the 2024 WHO Healthy Cities Recognition Award, with the World Health Organization praising the scheme as a global blueprint for shaping healthier food environments.

Now, the HPB is scaling this success to tackle salt. Starting in mid-2027, Nutri-Grade labels will appear on pre-packed salt, sauces, seasoning, instant noodles, and cooking oil.

However, Tay admits that replicating the "sugar success" with sodium is more complex. Industry feedback suggests that product reformulation is a delicate balancing act.

Unlike sugar, which can often be reduced without altering a product's core nature, sodium is often structural. For instance, manufacturers of light soya sauce warned the HPB that cutting salt too drastically could compromise the fermentation process, potentially ruining the quality of the sauce.

“They are fearful that they might be forced to reduce the amount of soy, which then leads to a poorer quality soy sauce,” Tay explained.

Beyond chemistry, there is the matter of taste. Because sauces are precise blends of flavour profiles, any reduction in salt requires a complete rebalancing to keep the product palatable. In response, the HPB has already adjusted thresholds for soya sauce to ensure a meaningful reduction in sodium without sacrificing quality.

The urgency is backed by sobering data. High sodium intake is a direct trigger for hypertension, a primary risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure. Data from 2025 reveals that more than one-third of Singapore residents suffer from hypertension.

Furthermore, the 2022 National Nutrition Survey found that nine in 10 people consume 3,620mg of sodium daily, far exceeding the recommended limit of 2,000mg (roughly one teaspoon of salt). The HPB aims to shave 15 per cent off this consumption by 2026.

To make this transition easier, the HPB is working with retailers to make low-sodium alternatives more affordable. In early 2026, FairPrice and Sheng Siong supermarkets introduced designated "healthier choice" shelves to boost visibility.

While lower-sodium salt remains more expensive than regular salt — costing around S$5 (RM15) per kg compared to S$2—Tay argues the cost is negligible when viewed annually.

“A typical household consumes about 1kg of salt in an entire year,” Tay noted. “In this context, paying S$3 more for a whole year’s worth of health assurance is not bad.”

Looking ahead, the HPB is monitoring global trends regarding ultra-processed foods (UPFs), industrial formulations like carbonated drinks and instant noodles that contain little whole food.

While a 2025 series of papers in The Lancet linked UPFs to obesity and cancer, Tay remains cautious. He noted that the current NOVA classification system is often too blunt, grouping calcium-fortified soya milk in the same category as potato chips.

“If there is a way for us to help consumers make better choices which takes into account both dimensions, it might then be a much more relevant and nuanced way of approaching this,” Tay said.