Headline: Fast Food Has Room For Improvement
Fast food establishments are starting to embrace the growing healthy food market, however still have plenty of room to improve. Here we discuss a few simple ways to make fast food healthier and still be acceptable to customers.
Fast food restaurants are often in the firing line with regards to providing their customers with unhealthy food. This is for good reason- compared with food consumed in the home; foods consumed outside the home are generally more energy dense and higher in total and saturated fats. There has also been research showing frequent fast food consumers are more likely to be overweight or obese than people who only eat fast food occasionally.
In response to this many fast food operators have started introducing healthier options to their menus. In a study conducted during 2011 researchers (Chand et al) found 21% of fast food items offered were healthier choices. This is a good start but clearly the remaining 79% of fast food items have room for improvement. Reformulating food products doesn’t need to be overt and extreme to make a difference; simply reducing the salt content of a recipe gradually over time will result in a healthier product and one that customers are unlikely to even notice has changed. This can also be done for fat, saturated fat and sugar. In these cases the food producer would probably do best to not inform their customers of the changes and go about business as usual in the knowledge that they are doing something positive for the health of their customers.
There are of course more overt ways to make food items healthier, in which case the food producer would want to advertise this and promote the new products. Doing this could be a great way to set your business apart from your competitors and attract new customers. We’ve developed some recipe makeovers to help fast food operators produce healthier, more attractive and profitable menu items. Have a look at some of these here:
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