I would like to see across-the-board reductions.”The British Retail Consortium’s director general, Dr Kevin Hawkins, wrote in a reply to Ms Johnson’s letter that “a relatively long period of time will be needed to bring about the cultural shift in the attitude of many consumers to salt intake”. She wrote: “So much more concerted action is needed if we are to meet our aim to reduce the population average intake [of salt] to six grams a day … Barrichello went into the lead on intermediate rain tyres, but as one red car went forwards, the other, on dry weather Bridgestone tyres, went backwards and then sideways as Schumacher spun in the second chicane after a brush with Button.Barrichello immediately opened an 8.2 second lead, but the drying track soon wiped that out. As he stopped for fresh tyres, the dry weather Michelin-shod cars of Fernando Alonso, Button, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen staged a four-way scrap. Schumacher trailed in 13th place.The first round of pit stops left Button with a three-second lead, while an engine failure accounted for Spa winner Raikkonen on lap 13. Schumacher struggled to overtake Mark Webber’s well-driven Jaguar and as the second stops approached, Button was still in charge. But when Barrichello had pitted on lap five, Ferrari had given him plenty of fuel, enabling him to run until lap 29 before a quick stop got him going again.Alonso and Montoya refuelled again on the 33rd lap and Button did so on the 34th.

However, Barrichello’s lighter middle-stint fuel load had crucially allowed him to lap fast enough to snatch the lead once Schumacher, who had worked his way up to a distant fifth and inherited the lead for two laps as the others refuelled, made his own stop on the 36th lap.Barrichello rocketed away to build enough advantage to make a final “splash and dash” stop on lap 42. “The response from the food industry so far, quite frankly, has been pathetic,” he said. “For every 10 per cent reduction we would save 7,000 deaths a year. You could make a 15 per cent reduction in all of these foods tomorrow and there would be no taste or safety problems, no technological problems.” Behind the row lies growing tension as the Government wants to make faster progress in meeting public health targets to be set out in a forthcoming White Paper. “[Retailers] are locked into a taste battle with each other and want more time to get people weaned off salt,” a ministerial source said. Health ministers believe consumers will be defeated in their efforts unless the stores and food suppliers themselves do more to cut down on the salt in a wide range of products, from soups and pizzas to cornflakes.Ms Johnson upset retailers in June when she told them their salt reduction plans were too vague, and ordered them to submit revised plans by 18 September.

“These issues are of crucial concern to their customers.” The supermarkets’ failure to move has been even more fiercely criticised by Professor Graham MacGregor, the head of the blood pressure unit at St George’s hospital in London and chairman of the anti-salt pressure group Cash (Consensus Action on Salt and Health). “Their refusal to meet the deadline [for a new plan] is silly, and we are extremely disappointed,” said a source close to John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health. Studies have shown that reducing levels of salt in the diet can lower blood pressure within four weeks.Ministerial vexation with the hugely profitable retailing giants ­ Sainsbury’s made over £600m last year ­ is growing. The average school lunch box contains up to half the daily recommended intake, and certain pizzas contain almost three-quarters of an adult’s daily allowance. We are making good progress to achieving the target we set ourselves.”Nutritionists have long warned high levels of salt are linked to high blood pressure, which substantially increases the risk of heart disease and strokes. The average adult effortlessly exceeds the recommended daily intake of 6g of salt, by consuming 9.5g.

“We are not going to meet that deadline because we believe our action plan is fine We agreed it with the Food Standards Agency. “Too much salt is bad for your heart,” the campaign advertisements will warn. But a demand from the Public Health minister, Melanie Johnson, for food retailers to update their salt reduction plans by the end of the week has been met with a resounding raspberry. Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda and Iceland have all ignored the request and are continuing to work on the less rigorous salt reduction strategies they formed at the start of this year. Tesco, the UK’s largest food retailer, said it had not received Ms Johnson’s 16 June letter containing the call and, as a result, would not respond to it.”Melanie Johnson has asked us to submit a revised action plan, but we are not going to do that,” said Erica Zimmer, a spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s. Britain’s giant supermarket chains are in open conflict with the Government over unhealthy levels of salt in the food they sell. Sainsbury’s and other shops have angered ministers by flatly refusing a direct request to improve their plans to cut back on salt, which is implicated in health problems.The Government launches a national campaign this morning to persuade consumers to lower the salt intake in their diet, as its contribution to high blood pressure is thought to lead to 70,000 heart attacks and strokes each year.