What Happens When You Educate Consumers On Nutrition?

They make better food choices!

It has been about a year and a half since food chains in New York have been required to make calorie information available for all standardized menu items.

The health-care reform bill that President Obama hopes to sign in to law in the near future contains a menu labeling provision that will require all chain restaurants with 20 or more locations to post calorie information in menu's and on menu boards. The provision will also require restaurants to provide additional information upon request, although I have not been able to pinpoint what specifics will be made available. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that sodium content is included.

While restaurants have fought long and hard against such government regulation, it seems that ultimately this provision can be a win-win situation for both consumers and food chains.

A study out of Stanford University entitled Calorie Posting In Chain Restaurants measured the impact the NY State law had on consumers' Starbucks purchases.

Research methodology:

Starbucks agreed to provide transaction details for Starbucks stores in NYC from January 1, 2008 to February 28, 2009, with mandatory calorie posting commencing on April 1, 2008. To control other factors affecting transactions, the study also observed every transaction at Starbucks stores in Boston and Philadelphia, where there are no calorie postings.

Findings:

When calorie information was available to consumers, the average calories per transaction fell by 6%. The effect was almost entirely related to changes in consumers' food choices - there was almost no change in purchases of beverage calories. There was no impact on Starbucks profit on average.

The study also estimated that revenue actually increased by 3% at Starbucks stores located within 100 meters of a Dunkin Donuts (an important competitor to Starbucks in NYC). Hence, there is evidence that calorie posting may have caused some consumers to move away from Dunkin Donuts toward Starbucks. The fact that Starbucks profitability is unaffected by calorie posting is consistent with the finding that consumers' beverage choices are unchanged, which is of course Starbucks core business.

According to an article this week in The Washington Post, next week Starbucks will introduce 4 sandwiches with 400 calories or less. Of more interest is the fact that all Starbucks locations will launch a campaign to promote beverages under 90 calories. This is a welcome addition to the current beverage line-up which includes "light" frappucino's with as many as 210 calories per 16 oz serving, and regular frapp's edging up to the 500 calorie range per 16 oz serving.

The Stanford study brings to light the fact that consumers are truly interested in making healthier food choices.

Need more proof? Fitness portal DailyBurn.com released the FoodScanner iPhone App in September 2009 and it has already generated in excess of 30,000 downloads.

The FoodScanner allows you to use your iPone camera to scan UPC barcodes and using DailyBurn's nutritional database, track how many calories you eat throughout the day.

These are strong indicators that the public has a need and desire to be educated. One can only hope that the government will eventually amend the soon-to-be-law to include a real investment in public education to teach people to prevent disease through nutrition.

Education is key and consumers are clamoring for it.

Train hard; stay strong.

Peace.

Susan