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Behind the Line: Calories count
Nutrition disclosure on menus affects diners' orders
By Lauren Kramer
May 01, 2009
Consumers care deeply about the nutritional information of
the food they eat in restaurants, according to a February
Technomic survey. New York City restaurants with 15 or more
units have had mandated calorie disclosure since the city
passed a regulation last July. The Technomic survey revealed
that 82 percent of the city's restaurant diners said calorie
disclosure affects what they order, while 60 percent said it
affects what restaurant they visit.
Eighty-one percent of consumers thought restaurants have a
responsibility to respond more aggressively to nutritional
concerns by offering more low-calorie and small-portion
options. Research also showed a high level of consumer support
for mandated disclosure of fat and sodium content in restaurant
foods.
New York City is not alone in its menu nutrition information
legislation. Philadelphia and Washington's King County have
passed nutrition information laws and several state
legislatures have pending labeling laws, among them Indiana and
Massachusetts. In King County, which includes the greater
Seattle area, disclosure of calories, sodium, saturated fat and
carbohydrates is required.
California was the first to pass statewide menu labeling
legislation for the disclosure of caloric information in the
form of bill 1420 last fall. The bill, which goes into effect
in July, requires that California restaurants with 20 units or
more provide nutritional information to consumers either on a
menu or on a menu board.
That bill will affect 100 Darden Restaurant units, which
includes the Red Lobster and Olive Garden brands. The company
has implemented calorie disclosure in seven restaurants in New
York City and six in King County.
"We're focused on supporting a federal law that would
require standard disclosure across the country, a national
standard for everyone," says Rich Jeffers, spokesperson for
Darden Restaurants. "The patchwork system in place right now is
confusing for the consumer, and difficult for restaurants to
comply with."
The National Restaurant Association (NRA) is in full
agreement, and is supporting a national bipartisan bill to
prevent a potential conflict with local regulations. The
Labeling Education & Nutrition Act, introduced to Congress
last fall, would provide a nationwide menu-labeling
standard.
"When different rules exist in various parts of the country,
it makes it difficult for consumers to compare options," says
Dawn Sweeney, NRA's president and CEO. "Consumers deserve a
federal standard that provides access to the same nutrition
information no matter where they are or where they live."
Darden tests the calorie content of its meals in specialty
laboratories, a process that Jeffers said is "not inexpensive."
But in units where that information is disclosed, the company
has not seen any significant changes in guests' ordering
preferences.
If you're going to disclose the calorie counts of your
dishes, you'd better do it accurately, as Applebee's
International can testify. The company is facing a class-action
lawsuit after an E.W. Scripps media investigation found it was
one of several chain restaurants misleading diners on the
nutrition facts of its so-called healthy dishes.
The suit came after Scripps tested food in eight cities from
popular chains like Applebee's, Taco Bell and Chili's
restaurants last spring. They found that some dishes contained
twice the calories and eight times the fat published in the
restaurants' nutritional information.
Law firms in Kansas, Washington, New York and Illinois filed
the suit in September 2008 against Applebee's International,
its parent company DineEquity and WeightWatchers on behalf of
every person who has eaten from the Applebee's WeightWatchers
Menu in the last four years. The menu includes entrées like
Cajun Lime Tilapia, a WeightWatchers-approved item that,
according to Applebee's, constitutes six points in the
WeightWatchers program.
In a statement, Applebee's International spokesman Miles
McMillin said the reason for the variation between published
and actual nutritional information is because the meals are
homemade and "don't come out of a box."
Disclosure of calorie content has been difficult for small,
independent restaurants because of the high cost of
laboratories and consultants and the complexity of nutrition
software. But FoodCalc is poised to change that with its online
tool, MenuCalc, which instantly calculates the nutritional
profile of recipes.
MenuCalc gives restaurant operators two options: an online
DIY plan where they can license the online application for
unlimited nutrition analysis, and a Registered Dietician Plan,
where the company's dieticians perform the analysis. In
February the California Restaurant Association announced a
partnership with FoodCalc, giving its 22,000 members a
nutrition analysis discount.
Until now, the annual fee for MenuCalc has been $4,200, but
company President Lucy Needham recently reduced the price to
$1,800.
"We needed a price that would make sense for restaurants to
have access to MenuCalc, particularly during this economic
crisis,"
she says.
"A lot of the larger chains already have their nutritional
information in place," she adds. "These days we're fielding a
lot of calls from smaller, independent restaurants looking for
our services, wanting to provide calorie disclosure as a
competitive advantage, because diners are asking for it, or
because they feel it's the right thing to do."
Whether a large or small operator, the demand for increased
menu information will continue to escalate - regardless of
whether the information influences their order preference or
not.
Contributing Editor Lauren Kramer lives in British
Columbia