Study of consumer perception of healthy menus at restaurants

Abstract

To improve food-away-from-home nutritional quality, not only must healthy food options be available but also consumers must respond by making those choices. However, this is not always possible, as consumers believe healthy foods are loss tasty. A new concept of gastronomy focused not only on sensations but also on nutrition and health is necessary. The aim of this research is to evaluate whether offering a healthy menu based on nutritional claims would be an interesting option for restaurants as well as to check the impact of proposed nutritional improvements on consumer’s acceptability of menus. 300 customers of a specific restaurant located in Valencia city center (Spain) participated. They answered a questionnaire about different quality parameters before and after changes on the menu had been done. Results indicated that changes introduced on the menus did not result in a minor consumer’s acceptability of them. Consumers only perceived changes in food size after nutritional intervention but quality of the food remained the same. In view of these results, the proposed intervention can be considered is a good alternative for a healthy diet, even if interventions don’t have a long-term impact. Further investigations are necessary to prove if the proposed changes are sustained.