Household names were prominent in campaigning for a gentler approach by the Food Standards Agency, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose and Nestlé were some of the powerful players who pushed hard to persuade the FSA to adopt less demanding goals, the papers reveal.

Tesco suggested softer targets for crisps, biscuits, vegetarian products, muffins and coated poultry, citing problems of “customer acceptance”.

The companies’ marketing strategies emphasised healthy eating. M&S was perceived as a model retailer after announcing that it had removed 200 tonnes of salt from food in a year. Yet it asked the FSA to ease targets for salted butter, crisps, savoury biscuits, pouched rice, processed puddings, canned red salmon, cook-in pasta sauces, cheesy bread and Devon scones. Most of its ideas were accepted.

While health campaigners welcomed the agency’s original plan to cut salt intake by 40 per cent by 2010 to reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack, the food industry lobbied against being forced to invest in new recipes or face “naming and shaming” by watchdogs.

When the agency published its final voluntary targets in March, nutritionists and campaigners were dismayed to see that they were much lower than had been suggested.

The Times can disclose today what supermarkets and manufacturers told food watchdogs, in their successful attempt to water down the proposed salt cuts, They emphasised the risk of food poisoning and loss of flavour. Some said that so little of their product was eaten that changes would make scant difference to overall salt intake.

Perhaps the most nakedly honest lobbying came from Nestlé. “Reduction in salt levels, even by a very small amount, significantly increases the overall cost of manufacturing the product, mainly because the ingredients used for the replacement of salt are much more expensive, eg, herbs or meat extracts. These costs will inevitably be passed on to consumers (including schools),” Nestlé said.

Nestlé told The Times that its “commitment to our consumers and to product safety is completely non-negotiable”.

The Times showed M&S’s submission to Malcolm Kane, a food safety consultant. He said the claim that the target for crisps was difficult because of the use of different seasonings was “nonsense on stilts”. He rejected the M&S argument that pouched rice would be unpalatable at lower salt levels.

M&S told The Times: “We have not asked for any major changes in any food that con- tributes to a significant part of a healthily balanced diet and we are totally committed to driving down salt levels across all our foods.”

In one category M&S stated: “Ham/cured meats. As a result of the known variability in the process, the proposed target would not give the necessary salt levels to prevent Botulinum. Suggest target of 4g (max)”.

By a remarkable coincidence the response about ham from the British Retail Consortium, which claims to represent 3.1 million employees, consists of exactly the same 31 words as M&S, in the same order.

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