The UK Government plans to update the underlying nutrient profiling model (NPM) that underpins high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) and less healthy food (LHF) advertising. In this article we outline what you need to know.
Published: 5 February 2026
Author: Stephen Johnstone
What is the NPM?
The Nutrient Profiling Model (or NPM) is a scoring system developed by the Food Standards Agency used to assess the nutritional content of food and drink products. It balances the contribution made by beneficial nutrients of food and drink products alongside the negative contributions from nutrients where intakes are higher than recommended, to provide an overall nutrient profiling score.
Currently, it is the NPM 2004/2005 (with the 2011 technical guidance) that is widely used, including by Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority, in enforcing the rules on TV and online advertising restrictions. We discussed these in our previous article Brand or banned? The new rules reshaping food ads.
Why is change needed?
The Department of Health commissioned a review of the NPM 2004/2005 in 2016 to ensure that it met the latest scientific dietary recommendations. Public Health England then developed a proposed update to the NPM in 2018 to better reflect modern nutrition science (NPM 2018).
In July 2025, the Government reiterated its intention to update the NPM in its “Fit for the Future 10 Year Health Plan for England” by stating that the 2004 model was ‘plainly out of date’ and estimated that a ‘simple modernisation’ could reduce childhood obesity cases by nearly 170,000.
The Government has recently published the consultation outcome from 2018. While the Department of Health accepted the nutrient profiling model expert group recommendations that followed the 2018 consultation, and the NPM 2018 was published (along with technical guidance), the NPM 2018 is not yet applied to policy.
What does this mean?
The adoption of an updated model will impact which food and drink products are categorised as HFSS and/or LHF and are caught by the advertising and promotion restrictions. Many products currently compliant with HFSS and/or LHF regulations will therefore become non-compliant under the updated model.
What’s next?
The Government has stated that there will be a public consultation on applying the NPM 2018 to advertising and promotions restrictions which will take place in 2026.
Food businesses may want to consider their product ranges and assess any possible changes to the classification and scores of those products if the NPM 2018 were to be adopted, and, in due course, feed into the consultation, which will be key in determining if the new model is applied to the HFSS and LHF restrictions.