Ruby Tuesday halts on-menu disclosures: nutrition watchdog group CSPI sees end of 5-month-long effort as 'step backward'

Nation's Restaurant News,  Sept 13, 2004  by Carolyn Walkup

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

MARYVILLE, TENN. -- Ruby Tuesday has ended its unprecedented five-month-long effort to disclose nutritional analyses of all food items directly on the menus of the 736-unit chain and is opting instead to print the data on separate tabletop cards.

Meanwhile, other national dinnerhouse chains are limiting their nutritional data disclosures to small portions of their overall menus, usually printed on separate inserts. Nutrition watchdogs that had praised Ruby Tuesday's menu disclosure breakthrough called its termination "a step backward."

However, Maryville-based Ruby Tuesday said it had halted the groundbreaking initiative, called Smart Eating, because frequent menu changes had made reprintings cost-prohibitive. Richard Johnson, the company's senior vice president, also explained that the updating of the smaller tabletop menu guides, which debuted Aug. 31, was expected to be faster and less costly.

According to Johnson, anytime a menu item was altered in any way, such as increasing the portion size or the amount of gravy used on a turkey dinner, a menu reprint was necessitated.

In March, just before the initiative was begun, Johnson had predicted that the chain's on-menu disclosure of total calories, total fat grams, net carbohydrate grams and dietary fiber grams would require insignificant effort and cost.

Customer response to the provision of the information was "overwhelmingly positive" but had not caused any significant changes in ordering habits, Johnson said. Ruby Tuesday, whose comprehensive menu listings of nutritional data were the first such effort by a national dinnerhouse chain, had decided initially to publish the statistics because of customer requests.

However, more recent consumer research and field tests conducted by the chain had shown no difference in guest perceptions between the divulging of nutritional facts on menus or in tabletop guides, the company said. Nearly the same number of guests noticed those statistics in either scenario, according to a statement on the company's Web site.

The tabletop cards now being used still enable guests to look at the same nutritional information before placing their orders and throughout a meal.

No other national dinnerhouse chains had followed Ruby Tuesday's lead in disclosing nutritional information for all items directly on printed menus. However, a spot check of several leading chain units in the Chicago area showed that many now include limited menu sections touted as low-carbohydrate or low-fat, complete with nutritional measurements.

Greeters at a half-dozen host stands at restaurants visited were asked if their employers provide nutritional analysis of entire menus, and the majority said they' didn't think so or didn't know. A manager at a T.G.I. Friday's said her company does not do so because every dish is made to order and nutrition counts vary too much to make published estimates accurate.

One page of T.G.I. Friday's menu, inserted between salads and burgers, is an Atkins Nutritionals-approved state of five items listing net carbohydrates. They are Tuscan spinach dip, buffalo wings, sizzling New York strip steak with blue cheese, chicken La Boca and grilled buffalo chicken salad.

Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar lists calories, fat and fiber grams for 10 items approved by Weight Watchers under a licensing agreement. Each item also lists Weight Watchers points.

Red Lobster's trademarked LightHouse Selections program is a detailed menu insert that encourages guests to design their own dinners to suit their diets. It lists calories, carbohydrate and fat grams individually for nine fish and shellfish items and one chicken entree, several side dishes and a few alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages

LightHouse Selections also includes a short list of tips for eating lighter, like ordering items made with low-fat cooking preparations, like steaming, grilling or broiling The program also suggests substituting cocktail sauce for melted butter with shellfish and ordering salad dressing on the side and drizzling it onto the salad with a fork.

A Red Lobster sister chain, Olive Garden, is offering its own trademarked program, Garden Fare, which includes a nutritional analysis of total calories, total fat and fiber grams and percentage of calories from fat. The Garden Fare listing is printed separately and inserted into the regular menu.

As at Ruby Tuesday and other dinnerhouse chains, Olive Garden's diet listing contains a disclaimer that explains that the nutritional values should be considered approximations owing to the handcrafted nature of menu items.

Seasons 52, a newer Darden Restaurants" concept in Orlando, Fla., which features seasonal grilled dishes and a wine bar, is testing an electronic means of providing nutrition information. If guests have questions about the nutritional contents of an item, servers can consult hand-held computers, primarily used to place orders, to find the answers.

Chili's Grill & Bar now features a menu insert in two categories--one for customers counting carbohydrates and another for calorie counters--titled it's Your Choice! The 18 items range from a low-carb beef chili with sour cream, cheese. onions or pico de gallo, which has 25 carb grams, to a 12-ounce seasoned rib-eye steak with a side of vegetables, with 8 grams of carbohydrates.