It's made with "vine-ripened tomatoes" and crammed with "delicious and plump" olives, but Barilla's Olive pasta sauce has been found to contain 90 times more salt than other options.

An analysis of 2215 cooking sauce products sold in the major supermarkets in the past seven years by researchers at the George Institute for Global Health has found a massive variation in salt levels.

It showed Barilla's Olive sauce was packed with 1.88 grams of salt per 100 grams – more than 90 times the amount in the best option, Tenuta Fragassi's Napoletana pasta sauce.

"A fresh pasta sauce from the supermarket refrigerator contains almost a third of a daily salt intake in the sauce alone; add cheese and you could be blowing the family's salt intake to well over the maximum daily limit," said Clare Farrand, a nutritionist at the George Institute.