We've been a while setting the targets. The ultimate target is to get us down to between the adequate intake level, which is 1,500 milligrams for an adult of average age, but is considerably lower for a younger or an older individual, and the upper limit target is likely going to be around 2,020.
It was felt that it was important to get an interim target that was feasible and could be achieved. That's 2,300 milligrams in 2016, and that requires about 5% per year. In Finland, that achieved 40% reductions. It took them about 20 years to achieve that. In the U.K., they're achieving somewhat over 2% per year. So it's a fairly substantive effort that Canada is trying to achieve.
It's important. Each year, as you know, we're estimating that 11,500 people have a cardiovascular event while we're waiting to achieve these targets. So from my own perspective, it's quite urgent that we do so, but we must do so in a way that we're actually able to achieve. I think that's going to require very strong government oversight, with voluntarism.
There will be good corporate citizens that toe the line. There will be companies that try to avoid the issue, potentially to gain a commercial leg up on some of their competitors. If that's a substantive problem, I'm guessing that our good corporations will be advocating for regulations.
I'm told that's actually starting to be the case in the U.K., where a number of companies really have made substantive reductions and are looking at some of their confreres who haven't. Some companies are requesting regulation.
In Finland, there were a number of regulations introduced, including high-sodium warnings on food. In Portugal, the amount of sodium in bread products was regulated, and that was the highest source of sodium there.
The advantage to regulations is that there is a very rapid change, but sometimes regulations can take considerable time. The model we're looking at, which currently is probably the most defensible one in the world, is the U.K. model, where it is voluntarism, but voluntarism with strong government oversight and with the threat of regulations should there be failure to comply.