McDonald's to Post Health Information
Oct. 25, 2005 — -- McDonald's customers counting out coins to pay for a Big Mac might soon find it easy to count up calories and fat grams as well. The company announced today that starting in 2006 it will print a nutritional information chart on the packaging of most of its fast food products.
It's the latest step in an effort to lure health-conscious consumers back into the company's restaurants. Fast food establishments have searched for ways to cater to patrons who wanted healthier alternatives to the traditionally high-fat, cholesterol-rich burgers that dominate fast food menus.
Many have introduced new, more nutritious alternatives. McDonald's was one of the first to undergo that shift after the film "Supersize Me," which documented the physical deterioration of a man who ate only McDonald's food for 30 days, garnered wide attention at the January 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
The film went on to make millions at the box office, and in March 2004 McDonald's announced that it would focus on smaller portions and discontinue sales of its oversized "supersize" menu items. The restaurant has introduced numerous salads, along with fruit, vegetable and yogurt treats in children's Happy Meals.
The new packaging will use bar charts and icons to detail five basic nutritional elements: calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and sodium. McDonald's plans to roll out the new packaging in the first half of 2006 in restaurants in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America, and will debut the nutrition labels at McDonald's restaurants at the Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, in February.
"McDonald's has introduced healthier menu items to broaden their appeal, particularly to women and specifically to moms, and this is just an extension of that," said Dean Haskell, restaurant analyst with JMP Securities.
Haskell said part of the company's goal is to convince mothers who order child meals for their kids to eat alongside their children.
"For a long time the moms wouldn't eat there -- they knew better, and they'd go to Wendy's or somewhere else for a salad," he said.
Haskell noted that, aside from the packaging, McDonald's has posted the nutrition information of its products on posters inside the restaurants and on the chain's Web site for years.
"This is just another opportunity to continue to lead the industry in disclosing nutrition facts," he said. "This isn't really anything new."
Some nutrition experts question whether adding nutrition labels will actually discourage people from eating fast food.
"There is little evidence that this is an effective strategy to change behavior ... labels don't appear to make much of a difference," said Jean Harvey-Berino, chair of the Department of Nutrition & Food Sciences at the University of Vermont.
Others pointed out that determining the nutritional content of each serving at a fast food restaurant might be difficult, considering all the added ingredients that are used. Hamburger items topped with mayonnaise, for example, might have a different fat content when different amounts of mayonnaise are added by different servers.
"Hopefully, McDonald's will make each of their items equal to one serving. If they don't, they're hoping people will remain ignorant about doing the math to account for serving size," said Mary M. Boggiano of the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Department of Nutrition Sciences.