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The Public Health Responsibility Deal

Out of Home Calorie Labelling - an overview for teachers

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The Public Health Responsibility Deal

• The Responsibility Deal taps into the potential for businesses and other organisations (e.g. NGOs, Public Health Bodies, Academics) to improve public health – it is based on partnership.

• Government action will continue – the Responsibility Deal supplements government action.

• The government will continue to: develop national policy, define priorities, communicate public health messages, e.g. Change4Life.

• Ultimately …

“Public health is everyone’s business”

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The Responsibility Deal Networks

• Membership from industry (retailers, manufacturers, hospitality), NGO’s (public health bodies, civil society groups) and policymakers.

• Charged with accelerating delivery of public health goals through greater use of business influence in the market and ability to engage with consumers.

There are five networks:1. Food2. Alcohol 3. Physical Activity4. Health at Work5. Behaviour Change

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Scope of the Food Network

There are four key areas for action:

Information to consumers(people)

Content of food (product)

Improving the availability of healthy food (place)

Promotion of healthier food choices (promotions)

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Food Network Pledges

To date the Food Network has agreed 3 collective pledges and 1 individual pledge:

Collective pledges• Out of Home Calorie Labelling• Salt Reduction• Artificial Trans Fats Removal

Individual pledge• Association of Convenience Stores – access to fruit & vegetables

“The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has committed to work with its members to roll out Change4Life (C4L) branding into 1000 stores, learning from the successful ACS/DH programme to improve fruit and vegetable availability in deprived areas.”

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The health context for the calorie labelling initiative

• 1 in 6 meals is eaten outside of the home, and is estimated to contribute 20% and 25% of energy intake for adult women and men respectively.

• The latest Health Survey for England (HSE) data shows us that nearly 1 in 4 adults (age 16 and over) are obese.

• Out of Home Calorie (OOH) Labelling is intended to inform and empower people to make healthier choices, and to encourage OOH food businesses to make healthier options more available.

• Some foods and drinks provide more energy than people think.

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Evidence base

• Evidence suggests that calorie labelling at point of choice makes consumers more aware of the energy content of food.

• Evidence continues to emerge, few published studies show that calorie labelling impacts positively on purchasing behaviour where people see and use it.

• New research from New York City (Dumanovsky et al 2011)

– most extensive to date, published in the British Medical Journal.

– assessed food purchases on the basis of till receipts from lunchtime customers across a large and random sample of outlets before and after the introduction of menu labelling.

– No overall decline in calories purchased was observed for the full sample, several major chains (Au Bon Pain, KFC, McDonald's) saw significant reductions.

– After regulation, one in six lunchtime customers used the calorie information provided, and these customers made lower calorie choices (average of 106kcal).

– Accompanying editorial from Dr Susan Jebb, MRC .

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What are businesses being asked to do?

• The pledge asks companies to make a voluntary commitment to display calorie information (the amount of energy provided by a food) clearly and prominently on menus and/or menu boards per item/meal for standardised food and non alcoholic drinks.

• The commitment is made by signing up to the Out of Home Calorie Labelling pledge as part of the Responsibility Deal.

• Any company can sign up if they provide food or non alcoholic drink to customers in an out of home catering setting.

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The pledge

The OOH Calorie Labelling pledge:

“We will provide calorie information for food

and non alcoholic drink for our customers in

out of home settings from 1 September 2011 in

accordance with the principles for calorie

labelling agreed by the Responsibility Deal.”

The OOH Calorie Labelling pledge is an ongoing

initiative – businesses can sign-up at any time.

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Underpinning principles

• Calorie information is displayed clearly and prominently at point of choice.

• Calorie information is provided for standardised food and drink items sold, i.e. standardised means ’food offered for at least 30 days a year’.

• Calorie information is provided per portion/item/meal; and for multi portion or sharing items the number of portions will also be provided.

• Reference information on calorie requirement is displayed clearly, prominently and in a way that is appropriate for the consumer, e.g. “Women need around 2,000 and men 2,500 kcal a day, children need less".

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Example 1: Quick Service Restaurant

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Example 2: Deli bar

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Example 3: Coffee board

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Example 4: Restaurant menu

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Guidance to support OOH Calorie Labelling

• Technical guidance on voluntary calorie labelling for catering businesses is available, providing support on regulatory and best practice advice to caterers on how to collect calorie information.

• Illustrative guidance on voluntary calorie labelling is also available. The guide:

– recognises the distinctly varied nature of the catering sector which presents practical challenges to information provision.

– offers practical advice and illustrations to assist catering businesses to apply calorie labelling in a flexible way suitable for all catering contexts.

The technical guidance:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Publichealthresponsibilitydeal/BecomingaResponsibilityDealpartner/DH_126217

The illustrative guidance:

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publichealth/Publichealthresponsibilitydeal/BecomingaResponsibilityDealpartner/DH_126218

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What types of businesses are signed up?

A range of sectors, including:

• Quick Service Restaurants/takeaways

• Pub dining

• Casual dining

• Coffee/sandwich shops

• Retailers

• Contract caterers

• Theme Parks

• Business and industry

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The other food pledges

• As well as the OOH pledge, the Food Network have also developed pledges on salt reduction and artificial trans fats removal.

• Salt reduction: The salt targets for the end of 2012 agreed by the Responsibility Deal, which collectively will deliver a further 15% reduction on 2010 targets. 

• Artificial Trans Fat Removal: These type of fats have already been removed, or will be removed, from products by the end of 2011.

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Further information and contacts

Information on pledges and companies signed up can be found at: http://responsibilitydeal.dh.gov.uk

Document with further details on all the pledges:http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_125082.pdf

Calorie labelling (on menus) pledgeDetails can be found on page 3 of the above pledge document PDF.

Removal of artificial trans fats and salt reduction pledgesDetails can be found on page 11 and 7 of the above PDF.

Acknowledgement

The British Nutrition Foundation would like to acknowledge the Department of Health for the use of these slides.

September 2011 www.foodafactoflife.org.uk