The ALMR has responded to the Health Secretary’s comments on the possibility of establishing a national restaurant pudding database to name and shame hospitality businesses.
ALMR Chief Executive Kate Nicholls said: “Pubs, bars and restaurants have already made, and continue to make, great effort to provide customers with information to make informed choices on their eating habits out of the home. Many outlets provide information on calorie content and food provenance to ensure that customers understand exactly what they are eating, to help encourage healthy eating.
“Additional legislation and levels of bureaucracy at such a politically and economically unstable time is exactly what UK hospitality businesses do not need. There is also the very real risk that a Government database of restaurant pudding sizes, which attempts to name and shame businesses, will have the opposite of the intended effect.
“The Health Secretary may view eating out as the norm but for many of our customers it remains a treat and customers make efforts to balance their eating habits accordingly. If Mr Hunt is concerned about calories in puddings, then a good course of action might be to scrutinise supermarket food, from where the bulk of the UK’s food is purchased.”
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