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Nutritional Labelling

9th March 2009, 3:58pm

Foodservice operators have been surveyed to find out what they think about giving their customers more nutritional information. We present the summary of the findings.

Most caterers are providing a great deal of information to their customers, albeit it in different formats/ways and not as a standardised system. They have dramatically increased the choice of healthy options and promote healthy eating and things like '5 A Day'.

They have a wider view of 'nutritional info' than the guideline daily amounts (GDA) information and have responded to consumer needs in terms of gluten-free, veggie, and wheat free products.

The majority are keen to provide further information to customers although the biggest barrier at present is that virtually no customer demand for information is evident in foodservice and until that happens, caterers are reluctant to do so.

Nutritional information seems to be important to some extent for over 80% of all respondents although factors considered 'nutritional' are wider than calories, sugars, fat and salt. Information about source, BBD, additives and allergy information, for example, are considered as nutritional information and of importance.

Caterers across all sectors are already providing healthier eating choices for the following reasons:

• Due to consumer demand, eg: B&I, Universities, Fast Food
• Keeping up with the Jones', eg: Pubs
• Balancing the junk food backlash, eg: Fast Food
• Proactivity, eg: healthcare, schools and prisons

It is common practice for caterers to highlight vegetarian options and provide allergy advice. This area is expanding to include 'wheat-free', 'gluten-free'.

Many caterers have increased the choice and number of healthy options on their menus and communicate these to their customers via POS (eg: posters and table talkers in staff restaurants, special sections in menus, healthy counters in food hall operations, methods of cooking).

Full nutritional information is starting to come through on bought in convenience products – but more could be done here on sandwiches and snacks.

Source of origin, Fairtrade and provenance have been 'hot topics' for the last few years in foodservice.

Food miles and local sourcing are current trends for promotion.

Overall it is fair to say that the catering industry is not methodical, consistent or complete in the type of nutritional information provided.

The over-riding reason being that their customers have not asked for it. Two-thirds of respondents said they have never been asked about the calorie, fat, salt etc levels of their foods.

However all mentioned that people with allergies ask about nuts, wheat etc. Secondary to that, there seems to be a perception (in some market sectors) that it would be too difficult.

Clearly outlining the type of information consumers would like to see and would use that is both manageable to implement and realistic to supply would encourage more caterers to increase information.

There is a consensus that parents seem to want to know more about foods to give to their children.

Everyday eating out of home sectors (B&I, Universities) seem to have a greater degree of interest in providing more nutritional info (even though they do not seem to be asked to a significantly greater extent)

There is a degree of scepticism that this is another government attempt to get caterers to help them reduce the nation's obesity problem – this came from the qualitative research only and was not covered in the quantitative.

There is agreement that information provided should be simple, user friendly (to both caterer and consumer) and uniform and actually required by consumers.