Majority of Americans favor calorie labels on menus

A decade ago, the thought of opening a menu at a restaurant to find the number of calories in each dish would seem far-fetched. However, with the rise of anti-obesity campaigns and greater public consciousness about healthy eating decisions, consumers have come to expect more information about what they’re about to eat. 

According to an Associated Press poll, 56 percent of Americans say they favor restaurants’ decisions to post nutrition information about menu items. With some FDA regulations turning toward more transparency and easy access to calorie counts and other dietary statistics, the shift could be challenging for companies to address. For example, a restaurant with prominent signage or significant investment in physical menus might be reticent to start from scratch. Investing in an industrial label maker or custom label printing can save companies the expense of overhauling existing materials for customers. 

Instead, custom labels can be affixed to reusable menus or signs to clarify the nutritional information of each item. Making the information more available to diners will tap into the public support for nutrition labels, while saving your company time and money. Labels can be a conspicuous addition that alerts consumers to their options in a direct way. They also allow proprietors to adjust figures if a recipe changes, and to update menus to reflect seasonal offerings. 

For decades, restaurant menus were practically set in stone: the title of the dish, a brief description and the price. Today, a majority of consumers say that old model isn’t good enough. With greater expectations on restaurants to provide information, the onus is on managers to see the benefit of labeling offerings as accurately as possible, for both compliance and customer transparency.