Taco Bell reduces salt in quiet campaign
By Matthew Lyle • January 26, 2015
Taco Bell’s menu is packing less salt, 15 percent less on average since 2009, the result of a stealthy campaign by Yum! Brands CEO Greg Creed.
Taco Bell’s sodium reduction was part of a Yum effort to make 15 percent of its menu items at the chain — as well as at Pizza Hut and KFC — conform to recommended mealtime limits for it, sugar and fats by the end of the year.
And by 2020, Yum wants 20 percent of its menu items to land at or below the limits, chief nutrition officer Jonathan Blum said. The idea is that if consumers eat three meals per day, one of those three meals at a KFC, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut can satisfy one third of the recommended daily allowances.
Creed, who became Yum’s CEO following a long stint as Taco Bell’s chief, said consumers may shun foods if they are advertised as low salt or otherwise good for you.
“People don’t want the taste to change,” Creed said in an interview this month. “If I came out and said ‘new low sodium Taco Bell,’ some people will think it will taste like you know what, and they are not going to come.”