There has been a thirteen month study in the USA looking at restaurants where mandatory nutritional labelling has been introduced to products sold in restaurants.
It is hardly a surprise to me that they found customers tastes remained the same and that purchasing behaviour remained the same regardless of the displayed nutritional claims.
It has been muted that mandatory labelling of restaurant menu’s could be used in the UK as a tool to help combat obesity but this study seems to say that it would not work.
From my point of view, when I go to a restaurant I do not want to be reminded of the extra calories I just want to enjoy my meal so maybe this research confirms I am not the only one.
It is thought from this and other studies that more complicated in depth nutritional information may not be the way forward for restaurant and fast food outlets, there are often standard and diet forms of a product, should that not be enough without having a myriad of nutritional data to back it up. Another point is that it is also suggested that quite a high proportion of the public have problems working out percentages so complicated may not be best.
FoodWorld 