Caterers have continued to question the feasibility of rolling out calorie labelling throughout the foodservice sector as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) prepares to outline its plans for a nationwide scheme.
Speaking as the FSA consultation on calorie labelling in catering closed last week, British Hospitality Association food and technical affairs advisor John Dyson said many small restaurants and takeaways did not have the resources or expertise to apply calorie labels.
Many were also unwilling to devote resources to such an initiative without more compelling evidence that it influenced consumer choice, he said. “The FSA commissioned an evaluation of pilots conducted last summer, but there was little evidence that it actually changed what people ate, which begs the question: Why are we doing it?”
Calorie labelling rollout ‘not feasible’
Compass, which trialled calorie labelling at three Royal Mail staff canteens last summer with very positive feedback, said rolling it out across 4,000 sites and 10,000+ products was nevertheless “not feasible”.
Corporate affairs director Allan Edwards said: “Where we have standard offers or limited menus that do not change frequently, it is doable, although burdensome. But it’s much harder in other areas.”
Caterers need calorie-counting tools
If the FSA wanted caterers to buy into the scheme, it needed to give them the tools to calculate calorie content more cost-effectively, added Leatherhead Food Research boss Dr Paul Berryman.
He added: “I’m not saying consumers don’t want calorie information when they eat out. In fact, I think many do. But if this is going to take off, there must be support for smaller firms - and some kind of incentive. You can pay for a third party to analyse your end product or you can try and work it out yourself based on published data such as McCance and Widdowson. But this is time-consuming and error prone. You’ve got to measure everything out and calculate exactly what’s in the final dish.”
Given that firms could be challenged by trading standards officers if labels were inaccurate, there was also a feeling that participating could cause huge headaches without delivering any benefits, he said. “It’s almost something the government should subsidise public analysts to carry out if it wants caterers to buy into this. If I were a small restaurant owner, I’d probably just leave it. If you want to help customers make healthier choices, you’d be better off reformulating recipes and promoting that instead.”
Caterers face legal challenge
The Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services said caterers failing to provide accurate labels would be subject to legal challenge, even though the scheme was voluntary: “There is legislation in place to ensure that any information provided by a business is not misleading for consumers.”
Last summer, 21 caterers - including Compass, Sodexo and Burger King - introduced calorie information in 450 UK outlets in an FSA pilot scheme.
An evaluation published in December concluded: “most issues that arose ... were overcome with relative ease”, although the authors acknowledged costs varied wildly between participants and calorie information provided by suppliers was not always reliable: “One dietician found that there were errors in information from suppliers, which had to be corrected.”