New healthier food standards to give babies best start in life
Source: Department of Health and Social Care, 22 August 2025
Parents and carers across England will be able to shop for healthier food for their children with new guidelines for commercial baby food to reduce salt and sugar, along with clearer labelling to help parents make informed decisions.
Baby food manufacturers will be given 18 months to reduce sugar and salt levels in baby foods aimed at children up to 36 months old.
Businesses will be challenged to change the recipes for their products to reduce levels of salt and sugar without the use of sweeteners as these are not permitted for use in commercial baby food. And clearer labelling guidelines will be introduced to help parents understand more easily what food they are buying for their children.
This government is committed to taking a different approach, to ensure it is on the side of parents and children so that babies are given the best start in life. This means going further and faster to support parents to make easier, healthier choices that will have benefits in the long term, easing pressures on parents without them having to change the products they usually buy.
Obesity costs the NHS £11.4 billion a year and is one of the root causes of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and obesity rates have doubled since the 1990s – including among children. High sugar intake in children’s diets is a significant factor contributing to high rates of childhood obesity in the UK, which are among the highest in Western Europe.
For too long, it’s been difficult for parents to work out what is healthy and what is not because of confusing labelling. But this government is steadfast in its mission to make it easier than ever before to make better, more informed choices that work better around the busy lives of parents. The new guidelines will help to put an end to the burden being on parents to sift through different products to choose the healthier ones.
The move comes as government hits the ground running in delivering its 10 Year Health Plan, which sets out a swath of preventative measures for children’s healthcare, including:
- more support from health visitors
- better-quality early childhood developmental checks
- a drive to tackle childhood obesity