What drives the reduction in sodium intake? Evidence from scanner data

Abstract

Some evidence suggests that sodium intake in the United States has been declining, but little is known about the driving forces behind this trend. We construct detailed, barcode-level information on the near-universe of packaged food products to isolate and quantify the role that product reformulation, vis-à-vis consumer purchasing behavior, has played in this decline. We find that product reformulation has been a driving force in the decline. Consumers, on the contrary, have gravitated towards saltier products. We provide analyses across socioeconomic and demographic groups and find that disparities in diet quality have exacerbated over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for effective diet improvement policies.