Warburtons’ chairman Jonathan Warburton has said that the baking industry doesn’t get enough credit for its work on reducing salt levels.

In an interview with This is Money, Warburton said: “The one part of legislation we’ve been very heavily involved in is the amount of salt in our products.

“As an industry we’ve worked incredibly hard at reducing the amount of salt in people’s diets and I don’t think we’ve got the credit for it.”

He added that the industry had worked “damn hard” on reducing salt levels, and that this was “taken for granted.”

He said: “There was pressure on us [Warburtons] to lower the amount of salt, and we’ve worked damn hard to do it, and spent a lot of money managing the business without it, or at much reduced levels, but the response we get is ‘you should’ve done that’ and it’s taken for granted.”

Gluten-free trend

In the same interview, Warburton also described the gluten-free trend as “complete and utter bobbins”.

He said: “If you’re a coeliac, then you don’t have a choice if you can eat gluten or not. However, I am very bemused by the 15% of people who have been persuaded that if Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t eat gluten, then it must be avoided.”

In February, Warburtons announced a three-year partnership with parkrun, which organises running events across the country.