The UK intellectual property investment group Tekcapital (TEK ) has acknowledged a decision made by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to release voluntary sodium reduction goals for the food industry in what it describes as “a major milestone” for the United States.
The new set of voluntary sodium reduction goals for the food industry will “provide measurable voluntary short-term (2.5-year) goals for sodium content in commercially processed, packaged, and prepared foods to reduce excess population sodium intake.”
Specifically, the goals were delivered by acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock and Susan T. Mayne, Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Dr. Jennifer Ashton, Chief Medical Correspondent of broadcast network ABC News said the news “could be the biggest, most important intervention in a generation for public health.”
Tekcapital said this morning’s news marked ‘a significant milestone’ for its subsidiary company, Salarius, which develops and manufactures the proprietary low-sodium salt MicroSalt®. In particular, it believes the new set of US FDA guidelines will encourage snack food manufacturers to reduce the sodium levels in their products across the board.
Salarius anticipates the sodium reduction goals should have a positive impact on both business-to-business (B2B) sales of MicroSalt® and retail sales of SaltMe! Crisps.
As a result, Salarius said it believes that MicroSalt® as a brand “could be viewed as a timely, nationwide solution, to help food companies meet these guidelines without sacrificing the full-flavour of their snack foods, which is key to their successful on-going sales.”
MicroSalt develops a low-sodium salt called MicroSalt®. Its distinguishing feature is its small salt particles-- about one hundred times smaller than typical table salt-- that use a large surface area-to-volume ratio to generate a salty taste while using significantly less salt.
Commenting on the news, Victor Hugo Manzanilla, Chief Executive Officer of MicroSalt said: “We’re very excited to see the FDA take a leadership role in encouraging the food industry to embark on meaningful sodium reduction programs for their products. This is a major milestone for the country, and we are ready to partner with food manufacturers to help them comply with the new guidelines whilst maintaining the full-flavour of their snacks.”
The particles of MicroSalt®, which is non-GMO and Kosher, are around 100 times smaller than table salt, allowing them to rapidly dissolve, producing a large sensation of saltiness.
Decreasing the public’s sodium intake would aid the efforts to curtail heart disease, which according to the British Heart Foundation, causes more than a quarter, 27%, of all deaths in the UK; that’s more than 160,000 deaths each year – or one death every three minutes.
According to Market Researcher Future Market Insights, it is estimated that the sodium reduction market will be worth around $1.76 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 11.8%.
Microsalt expects SaltMe! to become ‘a national brand’ in the low-sodium-full flavour snack category and that its e-commerce sales should be ‘positively impacted’, given a correlation between retail distribution, brand awareness, and expected increase in ecommerce sales.
It said MicroSalt® as a brand ‘could be elevated to a national-level ingredient,’ which it believes will encourage other food manufacturers to use MicroSalt® into their products.
Last week, Tekcapital’s portfolio company Salarius’ subsidiary, MicroSalt, Inc. was accepted for a roll-out of its SaltMe! crisps in one of the largest supermarket chains in North America.
The UK investment firm said the roll-out marked ‘a significant milestone’ for Microsalt and it anticipates the SaltMe! crisps will be available in more than 800 of these stores in 2022.
Speaking of its portfolio company, Tekcapital said Salarius is expected to have ‘a stronger go-to-market success story to present to other key accounts in the following months.’
MicroSalt®’s CEO, Victor Hugo Manzanilla, said: “This is a major milestone for the Company and one that we believe will lead to reduced sodium consumption for customers nationwide.”
Salarius successfully launched its innovative SaltMe!® snack line on Amazon in North America back in December 2020 with ‘demonstrable sales growth’ since the launch.
During the six months to 31 May 2021, Salarius progressed its B2B sales pipeline for Microsalt®, including advancing pricing discussions and successfully developing different flavor mixes using MicroSalt® for a number of snack manufacturers, Tekcapital reported.
London-listed Tekcapital owns 97.2% of the share capital of Salarius Ltd. and 87.1% of the share capital of MicroSalt Inc., its U.S. subsidiary.
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