Menu Labelling and Restaurant Foods

Foods and beverages purchased from restaurants and other food-service settings make up an important part of the Canadian food environment. Eating outside the home is associated with higher intakes of calories, sodium, sugars, and saturated fat, making restaurant foods an important target for nutrition monitoring and policy action.

Menu labelling policies are designed to help consumers make more informed choices when eating outside the home. In Ontario, the Healthy Menu Choices Act came into effect in 2017, requiring major chain restaurants and other regulated food-service premises to display calorie information on menus and menu boards.

OUR RESEARCH GOALS

The L’Abbé Lab conducts research on menu labelling and restaurant foods to:

  • monitor the nutritional quality of foods and beverages sold by Canadian chain restaurants;
  • examine changes in calories, sodium, sugars, saturated fat, and other nutrients over time;
  • evaluate the impact of menu labelling policies and related public health interventions;
  • assess how restaurant foods align with nutrition policy tools, including front-of-package labelling regulations, school food policies, sodium reduction targets, and restrictions on marketing to children; and
  • provide evidence to inform nutrition policy and improve the healthfulness of foods consumed outside the home.

OUR RESEARCH

The L’Abbé Lab has developed and used Menu-FLIP, a database of nutrition information for foods and beverages sold by major Canadian chain restaurants, to monitor the restaurant food supply and evaluate nutrition policies. This work builds on earlier studies documenting high levels of calories, sodium, and other nutrients of concern in Canadian chain restaurant menu items.

Recent research has examined the nutritional quality of Canadian chain restaurant menu items in 2020, changes following Ontario’s menu labelling regulations, sodium levels in foods from the top Canadian restaurant chains, and the application of front-of-package labelling regulations to restaurant menu items. The lab has also assessed how chain restaurant foods and beverages align with Ontario’s School Food and Beverage Policy and proposed restrictions on food and beverage marketing to children.

Together, this research provides evidence on the nutritional quality of restaurant foods, how restaurant menus are changing over time, and how nutrition policy tools could be applied beyond packaged foods to food-service settings.

Selected Publications