The president of the National Restaurant Association, a membership organization that lobbies on behalf of the industry, told “Nation’s Restaurant News” last week that the new requirement that was tucked into the sweeping health-care overhaul “is a win for consumers and restaurateurs.”
Although the exact date that calorie counts will be mandatory for chains with 20 or more outlets has not been set — the FDA has a year to come up with specific rules, and full implementation will follow — some restaurant chains are preparing to comply much sooner.
Panera Bread announced the week before the legislation passed that it would voluntarily post calorie information at all of its company-owned restaurants by last Wednesday, March 24, with franchise-owned Paneras — including those in the Dayton area — following suit later. The Miami Valley’s Panera restaurants will display the information by early fall — probably September, according to Judy Ketner-Dollison, marketing director for the owner of Dayton-area Panera franchises.
Scott Davis, Panera Bread’s chief concept officer, said the company’s own calorie-count initiative “prompted us to take an even closer look at our menu offerings ... The result was we improved the nutritional content and ingredients in several of our menu items. We view it as a ‘win-win’ for both our customers and Panera.”
Yum Brands Inc., corporate parent of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver’s, committed in 2008 to place calorie counts on menu boards at corporate-owned restaurants by Jan. 1, 2011, which will still beat the federal timetable by at least several months.
Dr. Susan E. Williams, director of the Center for Nutrition and Metabolic Medicine for Kettering Health Network-Greene Memorial Hospital who treats patients from a Xenia office, said she likes the concept, but would like to see restaurant patrons given a choice of using a menu that has nutritional information or one that does not.
“Not everyone is overweight or in need of routinely watching their cholesterol, carbs, or calories, so why potentially take the joy out of eating out by providing such information,” Williams said. “Then there is the problem with accuracy. A recent study found significant disparities of upwards of 400 calories between the posted nutrition information and the actual information obtained after purchasing the meal and having it independently analyzed.”
The new law requires restaurants to calculate the calorie counts on a “reasonable basis” using “nutrient databases, cookbooks, laboratory analyses, and other reasonable means.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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