The Food Standards Agency is bullying food manufacturers and posing a serious risk to public health with its salt-reduction targets, UK salt producers have claimed.

In a response to the FSA's consultation, which closed this week, the Salt Association called for large-scale, long-term trials to end the debate following what it called a "growing weight of independent expert opinion showing the FSA's science is shoddy".

The "blind pursuit of meaningless targets is putting a time bomb under public health", said general secretary Peter Sherratt.