Encouraging the food industry to reformulate their products is a possible public intervention to improve diet quality. In this paper, we assess the impact of food reformulation on per capita salt and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) intake, in France, for four product categories, namely, potato chips, fresh pizzas, frozen pizzas, and frozen meals, taking into account the changes in products' nutritional quality and consumer choices. Nutrient intake is calculated by matching data on food purchases and nutritional data, collected at the same date. An algorithm is run to disentangle the specific effect of food reformulation. We find that food reformulation, which is based on voluntary individual firm choices or voluntary industry-wide agreement in our case studies, contributes to decrease SFAs and salt intake in seven out of eight cases. However, the magnitude of the impact is moderate, except in the case of potato chips for which a much stronger impact is observed. Product renewal has an ambiguous effect, depending on the nutrient considered. By contrast, changes in consumer behavior increase the intake of SFAs and salt in all cases. Finally, food reformulation generally benefits all consumers equally, regardless of income or age. For food categories with consumption disparities, product reformulation can reduce heterogeneity in nutrient intake across socioeconomic groups, provided that recipes are greatly and widely improved [EconLit Citations: D12, D22, I1].

中文翻译：

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加工食品的重新配方：对法国盐和饱和脂肪酸摄入量的混合影响

鼓励食品工业重新制定产品配方是改善饮食质量的一种可能的公共干预措施。在本文中，我们评估了法国食品重新配方对薯片、新鲜披萨、冷冻披萨和冷冻食品这四种产品类别人均盐和饱和脂肪酸 (SFA) 摄入量的影响，同时考虑到产品营养质量和消费者选择的变化。营养摄入量是通过匹配同一日期收集的食物购买数据和营养数据来计算的。运行一种算法来理清食品重新配方的具体影响。我们发现，在我们的案例研究中，基于个体企业自愿选择或全行业自愿协议的食品重新配方有助于减少八分之七的食物饱和脂肪酸和盐摄入量。然而，影响的程度是中等的，但薯片除外，观察到的影响要大得多。产品更新的影响并不明确，具体取决于所考虑的营养素。相比之下，消费者行为的变化在所有情况下都会增加脂肪酸和盐的摄入量。最后，食品重新配方通常使所有消费者平等受益，无论收入或年龄如何。对于存在消费差异的食品类别，只要食谱得到大幅度和广泛的改进，产品重新配方可以减少不同社会经济群体营养摄入的异质性[EconLit 引文：D12、D22、I1]。