Business Research: Restaurant Menu Labeling Analysis and Findings

This report analyzes the theory and progress of restaurant menu labeling, a concept that emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries due to increasing health consciousness among consumers. The report examines the impact of menu labeling on customer behavior, including the effects of calorie information placement and the influence of nutritional details on food choices. The report discusses findings from multiple articles, highlighting the relationship between menu labeling and customer emotions, the role of nutritional information in educating consumers, and the impact of labeling on college students' eating habits. It also explores the limitations of current research, such as the reliance on quantitative methods and specific demographics, and suggests directions for future studies. The report critically evaluates the impact of calorie information, the need for promotional campaigns, and the limitations of the research, emphasizing the need for further investigation to understand the effects of menu labeling on consumer behavior and health.

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Brief summary of the theory and progress in the field
The development of the restaurant menu labeling is a very new concept and has emerged
in the late 20s and 21st century. This has mainly originated from the time when the restaurants
realized that customers are becoming health conscious. May 7, 2018 marked the initiation of the
menu labeling rule for the final time. The restaurant owners made sure that they are placing the
calorie values and also all the different other nutritional information on the side of the food items
in the catalogues. FDA has also been active in initiating this rule. November 2017 marks the
rime when FDA made expansions in the draft version issued. They have been able to provide
their clarity and also make sure that all the restaurants are abiding by the same.
Common theme
Restaurant labeling is one of the most useful theories that is used for the purpose of
understanding the motivation of the customers and the other emotions that are given rise in
the customers. It must be noted that there is a direct relationship between the restaurant menu
labeling and also the kinds of emotions that are appearing within the customers or the visitors
after taking a look at the restaurant menu. It must be noted that the theory of restaurant menu
labeling is of the opinion that the customers always desire to get a more amount if information
when they are about to eat at any place that is out of their homes or their known places. In other
words they are to make sure that they know all the information about the nutritional values of the
food that they are consuming (VanEpps et al 2016). Therefore it is the duty of the restaurant
owners or the managers to make sure that they are writing about all the details regarding the
calories amount and the other food values on the side of the name of the dishes. This will

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naturally be much helpful in order to understand about the actually food values and the
nutritional values that they will be getting after consuming any particular products. There are
some articles that have been used in this assignment in order to understand about the theory.
Different themes or findings across four articles
The article talks about the effects or the different impacts, that can be created on food
choices or decisions made by customers due to the placement of calorie values on menu card.
However it has been seen that there are some differences seen in the behavior of the customers
while ordering the food when they see the calories values being placed on either side of the
menu. Dallas et al. (2019) have suggested that the as per the studies that have been conducted the
participants have shown a positive reaction when the calorie values are placed on the left side
and they have been showing more time in taking the decisions when the same is placed on the
right side of the food items.
This article is talking about the different ways in which the researchers are talking about
the reasons why it is required for the restaurants to post their calorie value or their menu cards.
The article shows that posting the nutritional values on the menu card often gives rise to the
behavioral intention and also authenticity among the customers. As per the opinion of
VanEpps et al (2016) the practice of posting the nutritional values in the menu card will be
making the customers more educated and they will be able to purchase the low calories and the
low energy products.
This article has dealt with the different impacts that the restaurant menu labeling has on
the health of the college students. It must be noted that the fast food is usually one of the most
desired food by the young adults or the teenagers (Roseman et al. 2017). They are usually fond

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of the restaurant food and do not like to c are much about the nutritional values. This article talks
about the effects that were seen the attitude of the college students after the calorie and the other
nutritional information’s were being given on the menu care of the restaurants.
This article is trying to focus over the development of healthy eating choices of
customers based on the restaurant food menu labeling (Yepes 2015). This article studies about
the usage of the smart phone devices and also other digital devices like Tablets and their usage in
the determination of the restaurant menu labeling impacts on the consumers.

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Study limitations
There are still some kinds of questions that are still remaining unanswered and further
researches have to be undertaken in order to ensure that what will be the exact impacts on the
behavior of the customers.
The given research article mainly follows the quantitative method where the participants
were college students. The age of the students was mainly between that of 19 to 23 years.
Students were selected from a large public University from Southwest USA. However it was
seen that the gender played a good role or powerful role in finding out the food habits of
students. The method that was followed was mainly the experimental design where the
participants were exposed to the four different variations of a sample. The fours variants being
Version 1: No calorie or recommended daily calorie intake information. Version 2: Only
calorie information. Version 3: Only recommended daily calorie intake information. Version 4:
Both calorie and recommended daily calorie intake information. Parameters like the age the
ethnicity and gender were also taken into account. Pilot study was also conducted to see if the
students are being able to understand about the different items and the measurements that are
being used. IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22.0 was used for the data analysis as well.
Mixed method has been followed. Students were given a several question as via
questionnaire in order to understand the different questions and give in their responses.
Future research directions
As far as the future directions of this article are concerned the researchers have suggested
that there can be both a positive and a negative response from the consumers. Customers without

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any health goal will be ordering for more of the calorie based food. However on the other hand
the ones that do have a goal of consuming healthy will be asking for the healthy products. Thus
this will be really helpful for the customers to order for some food that will be helping them to
eat healthy.
It must be ensured that in order to generate the positive results there has to be a proper
national or Global practice of the restaurant menu labeling. These areas have not been met in the
organization and thus efforts have to be made in order to understand if the restaurants will be
able to conduct this practice in a proper way
There is space for working on future researches over this matter. However the restaurant
menu labeling is still in its stage of infancy and has to be worked upon. This might not have a
wide impact on the customers. On the other hand there might be a chance that the female
customers are ready to get the low calories food however the male customers are not.
Future research directions show that customers are concerned about the authenticity of
the different sources that show the food value. Nutritional information about calories,
macronutrients and fat are the most useful information that the customers are actually looking
for.
Reviewer’s critical evaluation
Calorie is one of the most essential elements of the food that can impact the customer’s
health in a big way. It is said that customers who do not have the plan of eating healthy will be
not impacted by this aspect. On the other hand, it is also argued that they there can be another set
of customers who will be growing more health concerned and will try to make sure that they are

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ordering healthy fold. Some additions like visual appeals have to be made like adding traffic
colors or showing some other points.
There is also a question on the communication campaigns that can be arranged in future
in order to make the customers aware about this aspect. There is a problem in the modern day
scenario in making people aware about the actual need behind the labeling of the food.
A huge amount of research has to be made in this field even in the future days so that all
the customers can actually be made are about the different food and their nutritional values.
There has to be proper promotional campaigns carried on for the consumers and the restaurant
owners as well so that they are able to understand about the need for restaurant food menu
labeling.
This study used only one menu item (a haute cuisine menu;) which seems to be a
limitation. In the future days the researchers have to make sure that they are using many other
kinds of cuisines as well that will be helping them to find out the actual impacts being created on
the participants or the customers. The other limitation is the demographic that was selected.
Smart phones will not be used by all the age groups of customers. Therefore a certain effort has
to be used that has a universal appeal.

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References
Dallas, S.K., Liu, P.J. and Ubel, P.A., 2019. Don't count calorie labeling out: Calorie counts on
the left side of menu items lead to lower calorie food choices. Journal of Consumer
Psychology, 29(1), pp.60-69.
Roseman, M.G., Joung, H.W., Choi, E.K.C. and Kim, H.S., 2017. The effects of restaurant
nutrition menu labelling on college students’ healthy eating behaviours. Public health
nutrition, 20(5), pp.797-804.
VanEpps, E.M., Roberto, C.A., Park, S., Economos, C.D. and Bleich, S.N., 2016. Restaurant
menu labeling policy: review of evidence and controversies. Current obesity reports, 5(1), pp.72-
80.
Yepes, M.F., 2015. Mobile tablet menus: attractiveness and impact of nutrition labeling formats
on millennials’ food choices. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 56(1), pp.58-67.