Effect of Menu Calorie Labels on Menu Sales and Consumer's Recognition at a Korean Restaurant in a Hotel

Article information

Korean J Community Nutr. 2013;18(5):505-514

Publication date (electronic) : 2013 October 31

doi : https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2013.18.5.505

Dongjun Lee , Jae-Cheol Lee , Mi-Hyun Kim ¹

Department of Food and Nutrition, Kangwon National University, Samcheok, Korea.

¹Department of Food and Nutrition, Korea National University of Transportation, Chungbuk, Korea.

Corresponding author: Mi-Hyun Kim, Department of Food and Nutrition, Korea National University of Transportation, Chungbuk 368-701, Korea. Tel: (043) 820-5335, Fax: (043) 820-5335, mhkim1129@ut.ac.kr

Received 2013 July 05; Revised 2013 September 24; Accepted 2013 October 10.

Abstract

Effect of Menu Calorie Labels on Menu Sales and Consumer's Recognition at a Korean Restaurant in a Hotel The role of calorie information is to help consumers make healthier food choices. However, calorie information is generally unavailable in restaurants. Even in high-end hotel restaurants, which try to provide high quality foods and service, calorie labeling is not mandatory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of calorie labeling on menu sales and consumer's recognition at a Korean restaurant in Kangwonland hotel. The calorie contents of 10 dishes sold in the restaurant were calculated using the food composition table. After making a new menu plate displaying calorie information, the new menu plate and old menu plate were provided every other week for 4 weeks. When we compared the sales between the periods of calorie labeled and calorie unlabeled, sales of 4 items among the 5 food items providing less than 1000 kcal, increased, however the 3 items among the menu providing more than 1000 kcal decreased. As the survey results of total 405 consumers (male n = 232, female n = 173) showed the new menu plate, 68.2% of subjects recognized calorie labeling on the menu plate. Among the subjects who recognized calorie labeling, 58.3% answered that calorie information affected their food choices. And most of them answered that they chose lower calorie foods based on the information provided. The results suggest that displaying calorie information on the menu plate at a Korean restaurant was effective in changing consumer's food choices.

Keywords: calorie labels; hotel restaurant; menu sales; consumer's recognition

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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Fig. 2

The menu plate which was using in this study. A: Original menu plate, B: Calorie labeled menu plate.

Fig. 3

Mean daily sales for each dish before and after calorie label on the menu plate.

^*: p < 0.05 by student t-test.

Table 1

Calorie contents of the ten dishes of the Korean restaurant in Kangwonland hotel

1) All menus included one bowl of rice (300 kcal)

Table 2

Sales of each dish before and after calorie label on the menu plate

1) Number of each menu sold in the two weeks /Number of total menu sold in the two weeks

Table 3

General characteristics of the subjects who participated in the survey about calorie labeling on the menu plate

Table 4

Recognition, effect on menu choices, and preference of calorie labeling on the menu plate in a hotel restaurant by sex and age group

1) N (%)