Finding the Right Balance Between Taste and Health
Technomic’s 2011 Healthy Eating Consumer Trend Report quantified what most restaurant operators already knew — a huge gap exists between what consumers say they want in healthy menu offerings and how they behave with their restaurant dollars. The hard facts: 47 percent of Americans want restaurants to offer healthy alternatives to the typically high-calorie foods offered; however, less than half that amount (23 percent) actually order those foods.
Restaurants can be challenged to find the right balance between having healthy options and running an efficient operation. While a dedicated menu of better-for-you products may be part of the solution, often, improving the health profile of a higher selling current menu item may have a greater health impact. The key challenge when making these changes is delivering great taste, and Omega-9 Oils can be part of the solution. Omega-9 Oils deliver the same great taste consumers are looking for, but with fewer “bad fats” (such as trans and saturated fat) and more “good fats” (mono- and poly-unsaturated fats). The 2010 Gallup Study of Healthy Fats & Oils found that half of Americans are looking to decrease their bad fats and increase their good fats. Simply by changing frying oil to Omega-9 Oils, foodservice operators have removed more than a billion pounds of bad fats and replaced them with good fats.
Whether or not to share this change with consumers is dependent on the nature of the restaurant concept. With menu labeling on the horizon, consumers will have access to nutritional data, but the opportunity to market more overtly still exists. If consumers doubt that a company could change their favorite menu item without significant impact to taste, a “stealth health” approach, where health profiles are improved without alerting consumers, may be the best plan. Whether companies market healthier ingredients or let the data do the talking, delivering great taste while providing improved health profiles is the key to closing the gap between consumers “wanting” and “ordering” healthier menu items.
