Nutritionally Focused Drive-thru Menus And The Impact On Consumer Preferences: A Study Of The Restaurant Industry

More than one-third of the U.S. citizens (over 70 million people) and 16% of children are classified as obese and are at risk of many diseases including heart disease. Research indicates that 65% of Americans over the age of twenty years old are considered overweight. To address this public health issue, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has proposed new nutritional guidelines for restaurant menus. Thus, the current study investigated the preferences of quick service restaurant (QSR) industry consumers with reference to the newly proposed U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations. This study includes development and redesigning of drive thru menus to comply with the FDA guidelines. A 3x2 factorial design experiment was conducted using real drive thru menus from three major national restaurant chains. The control group consisted of normal drive thru menus obtained from national restaurant chains, and the experimental group was comprised of two sets of pre-tested experimental menus complying with the FDA guidelines. The first set of experimental menus includes presentation of calorie information for all menu items offered. The second set of experimental menus includes color coded calorie specific menu categories (low, regular and high). A set of research hypotheses were developed and data was collected from heavy users of QSR units using Qualtrics software. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS. The obtained results indicated that the QSR menus designed to comply with the FDA’s guidelines do not result in loss of revenues as commonly feared by the restaurant industry. But interestingly the second set of experiment menus with color coded nutritional categories (low, regular, high) have led to increased consumer patronage and consumers’ willingness to pay. In iv addition, color coded nutritional menus were preferred over FDA suggested menus designs. The results from the current study are of significant importance to the QSR industry as they strive to comply with the new nutrition guidelines of FDA for drive thru menu

FDA Ruling and Nutritionally Focused Menus: Alternative Strategies to Comply with the U.S. Federal Guidelines

Research indicates that 65% of Americans over the age of 20 years old are considered overweight. To address this public health issue, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed new nutritional guidelines for restaurant menus. This study includes development and redesigning of drive-thru menus to comply with the FDA guidelines. An experiment was conducted using real drive-thru menus from selected nationwide chains complying with FDA ruling and alternativenutritionally focused menus. The first set of experimental menus includes presentation of calorie information for all menuitems offered. The second set of experimental menus includes color coded calorie specific menu categories (low, regular, and high). The obtained results indicated that the experimental nutritionally focused drive-thru menus were preferred significantly over the FDA format menus (control group). Consumers made healthier choices (low calorie menus) more often with the experimental menus over the FDA suggested format. In addition, consumer preference was higher for the experimental menus in ease of reading, layout, and convenience over the FDA suggested menu format