'Alarmingly high' levels of salt in popular sandwiches - with one nearing five McDonald's burgers

There's an "alarmingly high" amount of salt in some of Britain's most popular shop-bought sandwiches, a study has warned.

Action on Salt & Sugar analysed the nutritional value of 546 options, including wraps, rolls and baguettes, spanning supermarkets like Tesco and Sainsbury's and chains like Gail's.

It found one in 10 exceed health targets for daily intake of salt and overall calories, and almost half would carry a red ("high") warning label for salt on their packaging.

The worst offender, with a "staggering" 6.88g of salt, was Gail's smoked chicken caesar club. That's the equivalent of nearly five McDonald's cheeseburgers – or 10 rashers of bacon.

It's comfortably above the recommended limit of 6g of salt per day, which is around one teaspoon.

The £8.90 sarnie, which Gail's has promoted as its "most substantial yet", also contains 1,067 calories and 90% of an adult's maximum daily saturated fat limit.

But this calorific butty was far from alone in being singled out for criticism by the charity, which said a third of the products surveyed were worthy of a red label for saturated fat, and more than one in seven were equally high in saturated fat, fat, and salt.

Almost all of them (97%) failed to provide even a third of the daily recommended fibre intake.

And a quarter are classified as overall "less healthy" under the current 2004/5 Nutrient Profiling Model, limiting how and where they can be promoted to shoppers.

'A hidden day's worth of salt'

Studies suggest UK adults consume 8.4g of salt a day on average – 40% above the maximum limit. Too much raises blood pressure, a leading cause of stroke, heart and kidney diseases.

Given people buy 11.5 billion sandwiches across the UK every year, the charity said it was time for the government to introduce "tough" new measures to protect public health.

Sonia Pombo, head of research and impact at Action on Salt & Sugar, said: "Most people choose sandwiches for lunch for their simplicity, convenience and affordability. But what they're actually eating can be a full day's worth of salt hidden between two slices of bread.

"More than 20 years after the first set of salt reduction targets were introduced, it's frankly unacceptable that some companies continue to sell sandwiches that exceed an adult's daily limit in one go."

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Some brands were praised, however, including Pollen + Grace, The Gym Kitchen and Urban Rajah, none of which featured any red warning labels on their sandwiches.

Asda and Lidl also achieved full compliance with the salt targets for sandwiches, as did Starbucks and Greggs.

(c) Sky News 2026: 'Alarmingly high' levels of salt in popular sandwiches - with one nearing five McDonald's burgers