Why choose to fortify salt with iodine in bread?
FSANZ’s dietary intake estimates indicate that 88 per cent of Australians aged 2 years and above consume bread. For New Zealanders aged 15 years and above, 87 per cent consume bread. International guidance and experience shows that using iodised salt is one of the best ways to reduce iodine deficiency. Further, there are only a handful of salt producers in Australia and New Zealand, making it easier to ensure effective quality control for iodine levels in salt. It would be more burdensome to require hundreds of bread manufacturers to determine the amount of iodine present in bread. Under this proposal, the main impact on bread manufacturers will be a requirement to replace salt with iodised salt, and changing the ingredient list to reflect this change. Salt contributes to hypertension. There are efforts globally to encourage everyone to eat less salt. Therefore the substitution of iodised salt for salt in a widely eaten food is preferable to advising people to add iodised salt to their
