Assessing adherence to the UK Government’s sugar, salt, and calorie reduction targets by the highest-grossing restaurants’ menus in 2024: A cross-sectional study

Background

To address high rates of diet-related disease, the UK Government has a series of voluntary targets for retailers, manufacturers, and the out-of-home sector (e.g., restaurants), to reduce the sugar, salt, and calorie content of food products. There is limited evidence for whether the out-of-home sector is progressing towards these targets, and individual company responses have not been evaluated. This study aimed to assess adherence to UK Government’s sugar, salt, and calorie reduction targets for menu items offered by the highest-grossing restaurant chains in 2024.

Methods and Findings

Nutritional information was collected from restaurants’ online menus. Mean/median sugar, salt, and calorie content, per 100g and per serving, was calculated for each restaurant and food subcategory. Sugar, salt, and calorie content for each menu item was compared against the UK Government’s targets, and the proportion of menu items meeting (i) each and (ii) every applicable target, was calculated for each restaurant and food subcategory.

3099 menu items were included. Across all restaurants, 61% of menu items met their calorie targets, 58% met their salt targets, 36% met their sugar targets, and 43% met all of their applicable targets. Six of the 12 food subcategories, and nine of the 21 restaurants, had over 50% of menu items meeting all of their applicable targets. Papa John’s was the lowest adhering restaurant for the calorie (35%) and salt (8%) targets, and Burger King, KFC, Nando’s, and Vintage Inns for the sugar targets (0%). Restaurants offering predominantly Pizzas had the lowest adherence to all applicable targets (32% overall), but restaurants with similar menu foci also varied in their adherence, e.g., for the Sandwich restaurants, 76% of menu items from Subway met all of their applicable targets, compared to 30% from Caffé Nero.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that whilst certain restaurant types appear to perform worse than others against the UK Government’s sugar, salt, and calorie targets, target adherence for restaurants with similar menu portfolios also varies, highlighting the potential for restaurants to improve the nutritional quality of their products without changing their menu focus. Our study demonstrated that voluntary schemes do not incite a high degree of engagement across the out-of-home sector, and therefore mandatory regulations may be a more effective approach to improving the nutritional quality of out-of-home food.