World-wide statistics prove that eating away from home is on the rise, placing increased pressure on foodservice outlets to serve healthier fast food options that meet specific nutritional standards. Matthew Hancock reports
Be it a quick sandwich, a fast-food takeaway or a fullblown evening meal, we are eating out more and more. The foodservice sector, which translates roughly as “restaurants, cafes, hotels and clubs, as well as canteens and caterers,” is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world: the market is valued at more than US$476 billion in the United States alone. In Australia one in every three dollars spent on food is spent eating away from home, and according to research by AC Nielsen, a staggering 61 per cent of people in Hong Kong eat out at least once a week. Conclusion: eating out isn’t just reserved for special occasions any more. It’s now become an integral part of our day-to-day lifestyle.
This could be pretty bad news for our health. It is estimated that one billion people suffer from obesity worldwide. In the United States, the country with the highest obesity level, eight in ten people over 25 are overweight and 58 million are clinically obese. The UK, Canada, Australia and other Western European countries aren’t far behind. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 17 million people die from cardiovascular disease every year.
Studies have shown that children may consume twice as many calories at a restaurant than they do at home. It’s easy to check the nutritional value of your meals when you prepare your own food - in most countries, comprehensive and accurate labeling for goods sold on supermarket shelves is required by law. The same cannot be said for meals from the foodservice sector – that is, meals eaten away from home. To take an appropriate example: the US Nutrition and Labeling Education Act explicitly exempts foods served for “immediate consumption or consumption while walking away” from featuring any labeling at all.
As a result, meals which are perceived or marketed as a healthier option can often be just as unhealthy as a standard choice, and the people who choose them in good faith are none the wiser. A McDonald’s Chicken Caesar Deli Choice, which is implied to be a lighter alternative, contains nearly as much fat as a Big Mac. We are eating more and more meals away from home, and yet we know nothing of the nutritional content of these meals. As a result, we’re becoming increasingly unhealthy.
In the face of such a trend, there has been an unsurprising demand in many areas for clearer, more accurate nutritional labeling in foodservice outlets. The United States Food and Drug Administration has carried out detailed studies into the feasibility of nutrition labeling in the foodservice sector. Research conducted for the National Heart Foundation of Australia showed that of the one third of Australians eating fast food each day, 70 per cent were looking for a healthier alternative, and 75 per cent said they would be influenced to buy healthier foods in a food outlet, if they could tell which foods were healthier.
As it stands, this demand remains unheeded. True, there are a number of initiatives worldwide to provide simplified consumerfriendly nutrition information in shops and supermarkets. These include the National Health Service’s five-a-day fruit and vegetable scheme in the UK, as well as the recently-introduced “traffic light” scheme, whereby simple nutrition information is communicated via red, green and amber labels – green for a healthy choice, red for unhealthy, and amber for somewhere in between. But these are for supermarkets, and supermarkets alone. There are also numerous schemes to combat the rising tide of junk-food related obesity, such as recent calls for an EU-wide junk food advertising ban. But the demand for simplified, nutrition labeling in restaurants and cafes has yet to be addressed.
All is not lost - in Australia at least. A groundbreaking new initiative on behalf of the National Heart Foundation of Australia seeks to supply a much-needed, independent guide to healthier options when eating out.
In a world first, the Heart Foundation is challenging outlets to make healthier options readily available and easy to spot by extending their highly recognized “Tick” brand to the foodservice sector. In Australia, where 3.8 billion meals were eaten out in
2004, the Tick is a highly trusted food label element, reassuring consumers that a product has been independently tested to meet strict standards for nutrition, labeling and quality.
The original retail Tick, a joint world first with the Swedish “Keyhole” programme, was established in 1989 to improve the standard of the Australian food supply. It has since been followed by a similar scheme in the US. You can now find the Heart Foundation Tick, signposting healthier choices on 1,200 approved foods across 55 food categories in Australian supermarkets. The brand even required foods to display nutrition information panels thirteen years before it became national law.
It's introduction into the foodservices sector, a landmark event in the Heart Foundation’s history, is set to address the growing need for healthier lunches and dinners. The initiative is driven by the clear goal of improving public health; as Susan Anderson, National Manager of the Heart Foundation Tick Program, said; “the Tick’s sole aim is to improve the food supply and benefit the health of Australians.”
According to Ms Anderson, when consumers choose meals eaten away from home with the familiar Tick logo, they are choosing an option that meets “tough nutrition standards for the size of the meal, saturated and trans fat, salt and vegetable or fiber content.”
“Tick can make an enormous difference by improving meals eaten out. We know that if just one in 10 Australian adults swapped their usual Thai chicken curry for a Tick approved Thai chicken curry we would remove a massive 43 tonnes of saturated fat, 1.7 tonnes of salt and put 238 tonnes of vegetables on the table in just one day.”
Rather than attempting to eliminate “occasional foods” like burgers and ice cream, the Tick is more concerned with the need to regulate the content of Australia’s most popular foods, and seeks to offer a comparatively healthier option amongst them. Consequently, you will see the Tick on pizzas, pies and takeaways, as well as more traditionally healthier options like salads and sandwiches. Meals will also be subject to regulated portion sizes and will need to provide clear nutrition information tables at point of sale. But the point is that even without having to read these labels, consumers can rest assured that a Tick-approved meal is a healthier option.
The foodservice Tick initiative has the dual purpose of guiding consumers to healthier food choices with ease, as well as encouraging the food industry to make healthier foods. The Heart Foundation hopes that the commercial advantages of the Tick program, combined with the strict nutritional standards it embodies, will have a sizeable impact on the nutritional profile of the Australian foodservice industry.
To maintain the Tick’s credibility and to ensure a genuine effect on consumer health, Tick approved meals must consistently meet appropriate nutrition standards. As far as the retail market is concerned, compliance audits can be conducted by simply
selecting random samples from supermarket shelves. However, to achieve impartiality in foodservice auditing, random samples need to be taken while the meals are being served, usually at the busiest times of the day.
As a worldwide market leader in providing food safety compliance, SAI Global is perfectly placed to provide the sort of training, independent assessment and certification services to meet the difficult challenge of upholding the Tick’s strict nutrition and quality standards. The company’s status as global leader in food safety compliance was reinforced by its recent acquisition of EFSIS Limited, a principal European food safety inspection organization. The Tick Foodservice Quality Standard (TFQS), similar in concept to SAI’s own “fiveticks” StandardsMark. is the result of a two-year feasibility study between the Heart Foundation and SAI to assess the potential impact, acceptance and need for the foodservice Tick, and the development of a tailor-made quality system to ensure consistency.
Kimberly Coffin, Technical Manager of Food Safety at SAI, says “SAI Global provide consistency of audit approach and delivery. We have achieved this through active participation with the Heart Foundation in the development of their standard and essential food safety requirements, as well as our involvement in a trial audit program. Together we have also offered training for a professional auditor group in the specific requirements of the TFQS and audit delivery process. What remains is a resilient and practical auditing method that meets international standards.”
“SAI Global provides integrity to the audit process, and consequently to the use of the Tick mark. We achieve this with extensive experience in auditing management systems in the food industry, for compliance with internationally recognized standards and other second party programs.”
> Testing the Tick
Every Tick-licensed commercial outlet will be subject to regular, unannounced compliance audits from SAI Global. Some features of these audits include:
- Focus and time efficiency on behalf of the auditor, covering the essential requirements of the standard with minimal disruption to meal service for the Licensee.
- Sampling randomly-selected Tick meals for laboratory testing against established nutrition criteria.
- Testing staff knowledge, training and technique.
- Examination of quality and safety control systems and record keeping. Any outlet that does not meet these rigorous tests is failing to uphold the Tick standard and runs the risk of being suspended from the Program.
SAI has played a pivotal role in working with the Heart Foundation to develop the standards and systems behind the Tick brand:
- SAI assess and review the effectiveness of safety and quality systems during an initial assessment audit. The outlet will only be allowed to proceed with Tick meal approval if these original criteria are met.
- According to the Tick’s strict requirements, outlets must be Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP)-based food safety compliant.
- Staff will be trained to ensure meals are consistently prepared to the Tick’s nutrition standards.
The Heart Foundation initiative is now receiving applications from food outlets that are interested in the public health and business advantages of Tick meals. Applicants with strong quality control systems, recipe consistency and food safety already in place are favored in order to improve the likelihood of consistent standards, which in turn maintains the Tick status, and retains consumer trust. The level of interest is strong, so Australians can expect to see Tick on their foodservice menu soon.