Article

Why restaurants should ignore government’s delay on menu labeling

The real opportunity is to be a leader and put your nutritional information — all 11 of those pesky items, including consumer hot buttons like calories, fat, sugar and sodium — out there.

April 26, 2016

By Nancy Hampton,Trabon

No doubt the restaurant industry heaved a collective sigh of relief when Congress indefinitely delayed its new menu labeling rules in March. But just because we don't HAVE to follow the new guidelines yet, it's not a good idea for any restaurant company to take this as an opportunity to kick the can down the road. The real opportunity is to be a leader and put your nutritional information — all 11 of those pesky items, including consumer hot buttons like calories, fat, sugar and sodium —  out there.

Why? Because, regardless of the legislation, guests continue to demand more transparency from brands and sharing nutrition, allergen and other requested info is imperative to stay relevant in the marketplace. Subway is a great example. They moved forward just recently with labeling their menus and offering full nutritionals online because it is important to their guests. Doing what the guest wants and sharing nutritionals now, instead of waiting on government guidance, is satisfying guest need and establishing transparency and respect. Sharing as much as you can as a brand, specifically online and in digital format, is the new necessity.

One reason many brands dilly-dally in putting their information out there, besides hoping the deadline moves again, is they are concerned about how their brand will stack up against others. If a competitor isn't sharing nutrition data, why should you?  And even if competitors are sharing, factors like portion size, sauces, condiments and optional add-ons can affect how “healthy” a menu item seems compared to a similar item on another brand's menu. Many brands don't want to jump in to that unknown. Adding to the inertia is the fact that many brand teams simply don't have the people resources to dedicate to this endeavor, especially from the research and data collection perspective.

With the deadline up in the air, though, this is an ideal time for restaurant companies to review their menus and find ways to offer a range of menu options that align with guests' wants and needs. Brands will have to continue to evaluate their R&D and menu innovation in order to meet guest needs or risk a slow, painful slide into irrelevance. It's not enough to introduce an LTO to get your brand over the “healthy halo” hump. That guest perception and expectation is here to stay.

That's where today's restaurant technology comes in, offering guests nutritional data at their fingertips for customizing their meals. Bare minimum, all brands that want to be guest friendly — that's all of them — should have their nutritional information readily available online.

But where it's going is nutrition calculators —user software that allows guests to calculate nutritional information about their meals. Calculators provide a great way to help guests to evaluate a variety of menu choices and customize them to meet their individual dietary wants and needs. Brands that have pulled together the most granular nutrition data (every ingredient in the restaurant, basically) will have the most effective tool, so that every recipe tweak – no mayo, no cheese, add avocado, etc. – can be instantly updated for the guest to review before making their dining choice. We're seeing it more and more, and any brand that doesn't start heading in that direction now is going to be behind the curve in the eyes of the consumer in an age when customization is king.

Another benefit of having nutritionals that live in the digital space is it allows healthy dining aggregator apps to gather a brand's nutritional footprint and include it within their data offering. Making data available to these popular consumer one-stop-apps only broadens the number of touch points for the guest to access a restaurant's nutritional information, across multiple platforms of their choosing.

Other reasons to get on board now with technology is to streamline digital protocols and develop a process on how to best manage them. Nutritional calculators can be accessed by smartphone, tablet and desktop by guests without having to anticipate the menu labeling legislation. Restaurants are interfacing with their guests in more ways and places than ever before, and brands have a unique opportunity to have the same information everywhere when they put a calculator in place. Calculators are always updated 24/7 across digital platforms and operations don't have to keep a paper trail in restaurant locations.

All of this is to say that government nutritional regulations or no — guest expectations are already there. What are you waiting for? 

Nancy Hampton is the chief business development officer atTrabon and has spent more than 25 years in the restaurant industry as a marketing executive.