While most restaurants still don’t offer menu items explicitly labeled as more healthful, the number of establishments that do is growing, according to a report by Food Genius.
The menu research firm, which tracks items on 88,000 menus, accounting for more than 350,000 independent restaurant and chain units across the country, found that only 7 percent of those locations used the word “healthy” to describe food offerings.
However, that figure rose 2 percentage points between October 2013 and October 2014.
Other descriptors with healthful connotations, including low fat, organic, lean, natural and gluten-free, also appeared on a minority of menus. The term “natural” was the most widespread, available at 28 percent of locations by October 2014, an increase of 10 percentage points from a year earlier.
“Consumers have come to equate certain terms with healthier options,” including “natural,” Food Genius noted. But consumer perception of “healthy” varies greatly.
“Whether or not they are actually healthier is irrelevant and likely depends more on the specific issues to each consumer,” the report said.
It was a banner year for the terms “organic” and “gluten-free,” both of which appeared on menus at 9 percent of locations in October. A year earlier, each term appeared on 4 percent of menus.
More healthful menu offerings were also more expensive, with items containing organic ingredients averaging $9.41, and gluten-free offerings priced an average $14.18.
More generally “healthy” items, by comparison, were priced around $7.72 on average. “Natural” items were priced even lower, at $6.67 on average.
The terms “low fat” and “lean” were comparatively widespread, but not growing.
Mostly associated with dairy — milk, cheese and yogurt — low-fat items were priced on average at $5.84. Available on menus at 26 percent of locations, term has declined in use by 1 percentage point over the course of the year.
“Lean,” mostly mentioned in connection with beef, is priced on average at $9.41, on par with “organic.” Found on menus at about 21 percent of the survey locations, the frequency of the term remains unchanged from a year earlier.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
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