NYC's new anti-obesity message to restaurant patrons

After the firefight over menu labeling, New York City knows better than to expressly target restaurants in its new push for healthier eating. But the products depicted in the campaign that commenced today aren’t exactly what you’d whip up at home for breakfast or lunch, unless you’re Rachael Ray or a chain R&D chef. The message of the Department of Health’s new ads is clear, even if the approach is coy: Think twice, or maybe a third time, before ordering that burrito, sub or muffin.

The ads started appearing this morning on city subways. New reports indicated that about every fifth car will feature the billboards, from now through January. An Associated Press report pegged the total “spend,” as they say in the advertising world, at $82,000.

“2000 calories a day is all that most adults should eat,” blares the placards, which will share subway real estate with ad space for impotence cures, English-language courses and dermatologists. Pictured below that headline are finger-foods that look decidedly restaurant-born. A flag in the items reveals the calories of each—475 in a muffin, for instance, or 1,170 in a burrito. One installment compares the calories content of a tunafish sub (530 calories) with a roast beef version (290 calories). “Choose less. Weigh less,” advises the ad copy. You can read it for yourself here.

The campaign carries the theme, “Read ‘em before you eat ‘em.” Clearly it plays off the city’s new menu-labeling requirements, which went into effect for some chain restaurants in April. Units of chains with at least 15 units nationwide are required to post calorie counts on their menus or menu boards for every item that is offered over an extended time.

Clearly the city is planning to call attention to the calorie counts by urging citizens to read them.

A big caveat on menu labeling

The country is obviously tipping toward menu labeling, with mandates pending on the federal, state and local levels. But one of the nation’s most celebrated thought leaders is swinging in the opposite direction after discovering a hidden risk firsthand. Harvard University has pulled the nutrition information it formerly displayed in its foodservice operations because the disclosure of calorie counts could aggravate students’ eating disorders.

“Specifically, we needed to address the challenge a quiet and surprisingly large contingent of our community faces with eating disorders,” Ted Mayer, the executive director of Harvard’s dining services, said in his blog. “Those individuals can place an undue emphasis on calories and other literal food values, making their placement over every food item a real challenge. Thus, we did what we felt best addressed the special health needs of those individuals, much as we support people with food allergies or religious dietary preferences.”

Detailed nutrition information on what’s offered at the facilities is still available from the school’s website and onsite kiosks.

Posted comments on the decision have been mixed. Some students asserted that the situation mandates more effective counseling for persons suffering from eating disorders, not the removal of information that could benefit far greater numbers of people.

They also blasted the alternative of making nutrition information available via computers, noting that their meals are often a hurried, spontaneous affair. That objection could be echoed as the industry tries to deflect demand for on-menu postings by promoting online or kiosk postings as replacements.

July fireworks

Can I pour you another cup of coffee? How about another plate of carbs, or maybe something sugary to keep you going? You’ll definitely need more than the usual oomph and sustenance to get through July, which should have been specially named for restaurateurs. National Eye Poke Appreciation Month, perhaps.

This, after all, is a stretch when the industry will experience more firsts than the freshman class at Party U. If only it were to be as much fun. Or even in the same range as a wolverine attack. Instead, the industry can look forward to unprecedented bans, mandates, cost hikes and marketing experiments.

Start with the first-ever ban of trans fats in restaurant baked goods, which takes effect as of 12:01 a.m. tomorrow in New York City, or, as the local board of health is determined to rechristen it, San Francisco-East. Folks in that famous West Coast pit of activism now look at the Big Apple and mutter, “Whoa, those folks are crazy. Where’d they come up with these laws?”

New York actually banned trans fat some time ago, but provided a grace period for baked goods because of the logistical problems. Some chefs say it’s hard to deliver the light, flakey quality you want in pie crusts or pastries without using trans-fat-rich shortening. If they haven’t figured out how to do it by now, they’ll hear about it from the health department starting tomorrow, though fines won’t be levied until October. It’s the city’s version of double-secret probation.

By that time, getting fined could have lost its novelty for New York’s chain restaurants. About 2,000 of them will be subject to financial penalties as of July 19 for failing to comply with the city’s calorie-disclosure requirement, another first-in-the-nation distinction. Early assessments of compliance levels suggest a lot of restaurants will be writing checks.

Of course, restaurants everywhere will be punching up the checks they cut on payday. On July 24, the federal minimum wage rises to $6.55 an hour, from the current $5.85.

That may be the most universal of the changes. Perhaps the most limited is the virtually overlooked menu-labeling requirement that takes effect tomorrow in Mississippi, which is to catfish what Iowa is to corn. Starting at midnight, restaurants with catfish on their menus will be required to let patrons know the origin of the fish. If it comes from Mississippi, the place can meet the requirement by erecting a sign or placard on the premises. But if it’s imported, that fact has to be pointed out on the menu, in the same font and type size as everything else.

Feature Mississippi catfish, and you have to post a sign. Feature another nation’s, and you have to reprint your menu. The impression of the state’s school system may be about to change.

A turn for the worse on menu labeling

One of the industry’s key defenses against menu labeling has been rendered useless by a recent court filing that could also break up the trade’s Hail Mary play for softening the impact of nutrition-disclosure mandates. The actions, little-noticed outside of the regulatory and legal worlds, came not from the restaurant business’ usual adversaries on diet-related matters, but from the hoped-for ally known as the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.

The development was the latest in the prolonged legal effort by the New York State Restaurant Association to overturn a New York City requirement that local chain units post calorie counts on menu boards, regular bills of fare and drink menus. The association filed a lawsuit in federal court that asserts the city does not have the authority to regulate nutrition disclosure, since that power resides exclusively with the FDA.

Not so, the FDA itself said in a friend-of-the-court brief that was filed on May 29. The agency, which has been expressly granted the right to specify and police what nutritional information is printed on grocery-store items, told the court that it doesn’t have a hammerlock on menu disclosure. Only if a restaurant makes a health-related claim—such as pronouncing an item life-prolonging or cholesterol-reducing—do FDA rules pre-empt state or local regulations, the agency said.

The take-away for state and local jurisdictions that want to require restaurants on their turf to divulge nutrition information for all menu items: Knock yourself out.

The filing by the FDA, which had been requested by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in effect scuttles the pre-emption challenge that a number of restaurant groups have either eyed or actually tried in their efforts to fend off labeling mandates. But the damage to the industry’s defense strategies could go farther than that.

As I’ve mentioned in a column, there’s a growing sensibility within the restaurant industry that menu-labeling requirements are going to be a new reality, no matter how unpleasant the trade might find them. It’s a tide that the business may simply not be able to hold back. Some broad-minded thinkers are proposing behind closed doors that the industry temper the effects by suggesting the federal government take the lead on menu disclosure.

That way, the proponents argue, chains would have to meet only one set of disclosure standards from coast to coast, instead of a hodgepodge of obligations that could vary from town to town. Chains that operate in both Seattle and New York, for instance, will be required to provide one set of info on the West Coast, and another type on the East. Branches in the two cities will almost certainly end up with different types of menus and menu boards, which may be still different from the ones required for Santa Clara or San Francisco Counties in California.

But now the FDA has said that Congress didn’t want it to regulate restaurants, so states, counties and municipalities are the ones to fill the void. I’m certainly no lobbyist, but it seems that the industry would have to push legislation through Congress that would call for menu regulation by the agency. It could be one of the smartest things the industry has ever done. But a firefight will almost certainly erupt as rank-and-file operators balk at the notion of asking for government regulation. In the minds of those who are still thinking in yesterday’s terms, it’d be like pushing for a tax increase.

And then there’s the wild card that was dealt to the industry just this past week. A group of consumers has sued Applebee’s and Brinker International for allegedly misstating the nutritional information they voluntarily post on their menus. The class action suits allege that Applebee’s understated the fat content of its Weight Watchers-branded selections, and that Brinker similarly bent the truth the same on Chili’s Guiltless Grill section.

Those brands voluntarily disclosed information and ended up getting sued. When chain after chain after chain is posting analytical data to meet disclosure requirements, won’t the industry become the barrel where litigation-minded lawyers and consumers can draw a bead on the next fat tuna they’d like to fillet in court?

If the industry does proceed with its efforts to legislate federal labeling regulation, it would be well served to also incorporate some defenses against bounty-hunting of that nature.

Wringing out 2007

Let the swallows flock to Capistrano. We ink-stained wretches have our own compulsion to indulge. The minute they roll Dick Clark out of the home and start the chondroitin drip, every journalist feels the irresistible drive to recap the outgoing year’s memorable moments. Who am I to fight Mother Nature? Here’s my rundown of developments the restaurant industry should remember about 2007.

Most worrisome trend to emerge: Menu labeling The industry’s arch concern, a monster it’s beaten back time and again, arrived with a cancelled one-way ticket last year. New York City and King County, Wash., have already decided that local chain restaurants will have to post calorie information on menus and menu boards. California’s Silicon Valley and the Washington, D.C., suburb of Montgomery County will likely follow with similar labeling requirements. And from there, the dominos will fall. It’s only a matter of time until a state mandates nutritional displays. Then we’ll watch a repeat of smoking bans’ spread.

Runner up: Paid sick leave, already mandated in San Francisco, with Washington, D.C. expected to vote on a measure next week.

Biggest yawn of a trend: Trans-fat bans. Sure, availability of alternative oils is still a problem. Witness the decision by Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s to delay their switch because of supply issues. But New York’s changeover, the nation’s first, went relatively smoothly. Regulators say the biggest problem to date has involved the use of margarine, a potential motherlode of trans fats, without a heads-up to patrons.

The bigger challenge, restaurateurs say, will be the requirement that trans fats be eliminated from baking, a process that benefits greatly from that type of shortening. It may prove to be more of a painful changeover for the true baked-good artists.

Biggest trend that failed to materialize: The mainstreaming of organics. The supply just isn’t there, and the consumer appeal seems secondary to matters like source labeling--saying where each element in a menu item came from, a mega-trend even evident within the mass-market chains.

Unforeseen trend fallout of the year: Smoking bans’ literal way of chilling sales in northern states. Lighting up outside may not have been a problem during spring and summer. But this is the first winter of outside-smoking-only for Anchorage, Alaska, and Illinois, among other areas with frigid weather. Operators in some of those regions are attempting to hold onto patrons by erecting smoking huts, complete with heat. But many of the new rules also prohibit smoking 15 feet from a door, window or other potential vent into a restaurant, meaning you may not have the space in a downtown setting. The industry may want to consider subsidizing sales of The Patch.

Menu trend of the year: Miniaturization. You can now buy a mini-sized burger from an abundance of restaurants, chain or independent, thanks to the Lilliputian Effect. Restaurateurs are smartly betting that consumers will pay a premium for variety (with sampler packs) or the chance to have a few bites of something their doctors tell them they should eat more rarely. A few even savvier players have taken the same approach with desserts, and you can even find some mini-cocktails out there, too.

Menu-item comeback of the year: Burgers. Back in vogue for the umpteenth time, thanks to interest from high-end chefs along the coasts and higher quality offerings from the maintstream chains.


Best product trend from a consumer standpoint: Premium coffee and coffee-based blended drinks. Even office coffee-break stations are being revamped to feature better grades.

Best product trend from a business standpoint: See above. How can you beat the margins on products consisting mainly of water?

Most intriguing new concepts: The wave of all-natural grab-and-go places, like Fresh & Easy, the U.S. beachhead of European retailing giant Tesco, or the Michael Milken-backed Eaturna, which is growing in partnership with concessionaire HMSHost. The places are actually riding three trends that clearly gained strength in '07: Stepped up demand for meals that could be eaten off-premise, increased interest in natural foods, and heightened desire for quality food that can be purchased in a snap, a la grab-and-go formats.

The places are part of a larger trend that has yet to fully flower: With Whole Foods and Trader Joe's proving it can be done, food retailers are finally offering the caliber of ready-to-eat foods that could steal business from restaurants. Supermarkets have always posed a threat to restaurants because consumers are inside them several times a week, but the quality was never there. That's changing. The missing piece is marketing that effectively lets the public know they have a new, viable dining option.

Most encouraging development for foodservice: A clamor for greater collaboration in promoting food safety, both within an organization (i.e., food safety working with marketing as well as ops to guarantee that new menu items are safe) and between groups, including competing chains. The theme was stressed both at Nation’s Restaurant News’ Food Safety Symposium and Cooperating for Food Safety, a conference held in Washington specifically to bring traditional adversaries together for the promotion of safe practices.

Most discouraging development for foodservice: The charlatanism evident in the green movement, with opportunists suddenly declaring themselves eco-friendly as a result of marketing considerations, not true environmental merit. There’s an old southern expression: “Puttin’ a hat on a mule don’t make it the Pope.” Ditto for slapping a green-sounding slogan on a product or service.

In my next installment, I'll complete the annual rite of journalism and offer my predictions for '08.

A yellow light on voluntary menu labeling

Chain executives will be hyperventilating into brown paper bags next week when the push for menu labeling is taken up again by New York City’s health department—or as some restaurateurs view it, the castle of the mad Dr. Friedan. The agency will invite the public to comment Tuesday on its latest calorie-disclosure proposal, which is widely seen as a possible model for jurisdictions throughout the country. But it’s probably better they copy that measure than reach across the Atlantic for the approach now being pursued in the U.K.

The Food Standards Agency—Britain’s Food and Drug Administration—is pressing McDonald’s, Compass and other multi-restaurant companies to go beyond merely disclosing nutritional information on their menus, according to London press reports. The regulators want the big operations to steer patrons toward more healthful choices, and away from options with high sugar, salt or fat contents, by using stoplight symbol. A green circle, like a “go” light, would designate the best choices. A red circle would send a not-so-subtle message of, “Stop!” And a yellow indicator would be the equivalent of a Larry David-like, “Eh.”

Lest you think the restaurant industry is crying wolf, consider that the alert system is already being voluntarily followed by a number of major supermarket chains across the pond. The foodservice chains are being asked to adopt the program voluntarily, but the esteemed London Telegraph said the present “talks” could build into out-and-out pressure on the operators.

The news reports say that regulators are focusing their sales efforts on quick-service chains because children account for a big portion of their clientele. It’s the argument that the industry has struggled in vain to parry: Adults may be able to make an informed choice about what to eat, but how can you expect children to comprehend nutrition stats as they’re standing in line? Why not just give them a simple symbolic rating of each item?

It’s a powerful argument, and one the industry would no doubt like to bar from these shores.