CLH News #244 April/May 2022

How Calorie Labelling Legislation Is Going To Impact Health And Hospitality

New legislation for large businesses such as takeaways, restaurants, and cafes became effective in the United Kingdom, just a day ahead of World Health Day. It requires calorie information to be displayed on menus, online menus, third-party apps, food delivery platforms, and food labels.

The legislation aimed to tackle obesity also requires the seller to put daily recommended calorie needs. The idea behind the rule is to make people more informed and go for healthier choices when they are eating out or ordering food from outside.

World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7th of April to draw people’s attention to a specific health topic of concern. This year the theme was ‘Our plant our health’. The Covid-19 pandemic has become a guiding force for mankind, it revealed not only the persisting inequities in the society but also highlighted the weaknesses in all areas of society and an urgency to make the society sustainable, which vows to achieve equitable health.

WHAT PROMPTED THE GOVERN- MENT’S DECISION ON CALORIE LABELLING?

Obesity was one of the key health concerns that emerged during the pandemic and tackling this health crisis became the major aim of the government. It has been said by health experts that type 2 diabetes is prompted by obesity. Not only health but finances are also getting impacted due to obesity, government’s estimation states that the nation’s overweight and obesity-related conditions cost the National Health Service (NHS) £6.1 billion each year. The huge sum invested in the public healthcare system due to obesity could have been used for various other welfare and economic development purposes.

The government in its drive to level up the health of the nation mandated to display of calorie information on non-prepacked food and soft drinks. The new changes, which became effective on 6 April 2022, were approved by Parliament in 2021, making it mandatory for the large food businesses employing more than 250

people to display calorie information.HOW ARE BUSINESSES COPING?

For many large businesses, it hasn’t come as a surprise as they have been following it for a long, firms like McDonald’s have been doing it for decades, but now others will also have to follow the rule religiously.

Hospitality businesses will have to label food with its product name and provide a full list of ingredients and calorie information on menus, food labels, online menus, food delivery platforms as well as third-party apps. The other measure included in the legislation that could impact the hospitality business is a ban on free refills of sugary soft drinks in restaurants and bars this year, which used to be a major lure for many venues. Also, before 9 pm there won’t be any adverts for junk food.

The government has released guidelines, FAQs, and pictorial samples for displaying calorie information per portion basis. Still, there are many challenges that businesses are facing. First, there is confusion on printing requirements, how to go and what would suit, a pre-printed label or a sticky label and how to update them frequently based on the changes in menu ingredients. The legislation also includes a provision for customers to ask for a menu that does not contain calorie counts if they are finding it difficult to go by the detailed information on calories. It doubles the task of the businesses to prepare both kinds of menus. As per UKHospitality estimates, the legislation could put an additional burden of £40,000 per menu run for the hospitality businesses.

A robust system is required to monitor everything, not only the menus but chefs using the right amount of ingredients they use every day and then putting it accordingly, based on per-portion is undoubtedly going to increase the cost of the businesses.

IS IT THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE WRONG TIME?

UK hospitality sector is in shambles and trying hard to recover from the pandemic blues, at this juncture introduction of something that can increase their financial burden can prove detrimental. The complicated and costly new labelling system could have been delayed for some time, at least until businesses could have managed other pressing demands for their recovery.

There are other thoughts against the new system as well, the UK's eating disorder charity has said that the system of mandatorily labelling calories could lead to harmful eating disorder thoughts and behaviours.

Obesity can have a severe impact on people’s health. It is the second biggest cause of cancer across the UK and needs to be taken care of, but the industry getting impacted most, also needs due consideration to be a part of this noble mission.

By Kunal Sawhney, CEO of Kalkine (www.kalkine.co.uk)

Why Catering For Customers With Accessibility Needs Is Key In The Hospitality Sector

By Jonathan Hassell, founder and CEO at Hassell Inclusion (www.hassellinclusion.com)

Like many sectors, the hospitality industry has seen a huge increase in the use of digital technologies over the past two years. They touch every part of a customer’s journey, from searching for a potential venue, to activating special offers via social media, perusing an online menu, booking a table via a website or ordering via an app or QR code.

This move to digital shows no sign of slowing down. In its latest 2022 trends report, OpenTable found that 43% of the consumers it surveyed said they would even welcome more advanced technologies such as voice ordering, virtual reality and sophisticated chatbots.

However, there is a danger that many businesses could be missing out on a huge number of customers if they haven’t made their digital platforms accessible.

More than one in five potential UK consumers have a disability, and, according to research from The Purple Pound, restaurants, pubs and clubs could be losing up to £163 million a month if they are not addressing accessibility.

Providing a warm welcome to customers is paramount in the hospitality industry, and yet so many of their potential patrons with accessibility requirements are being left out in the cold. So, how can businesses in the sector turn this ‘invisible’ 20% into a loyal 20%? Quite simply, by making sure their digital communications and services are accessible to everyone.

AN END-TO-END ACCESSIBILITY APPROACH

Being great at digital accessibility isn’t just about having a good website, it’s about the whole user journey, from your marketing to your digital platforms to your in-venue experience. This requires a strategic approach to ensure that accessibility is ‘baked in’ to your processes rather than having to retro-fix elements of your services that simply don’t cater for those with specific needs.

To be truly accessible, you will need to go beyond Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance. You need to think about accessibility across all your digital channels.

In our experience, there are several potential weak spots in customer-facing industries such as hospitality:

1. Good design is accessible design – Your choice of colours, fonts and imagery could be key to winning or losing customers. For example, people with a range of visual impairments struggle with low contrast text, and those on the autistic spectrum may be put off with too many images, so it’s best to use white space to let things breathe. Similarly, be careful in your choice of fonts - handwriting fonts may look fantastic but can be difficult for many people to read, so use them for branding not essential information. Another benefit of accessible design is that it can improve your SEO if you use closed captions on videos, and clear and simple headings.

2. Be socially accessible – Social media is a key channel for many in the industry to promote their business and there are several things you can do to make sure your social activity is accessible. For example, hashtags are a great way to get noticed, but make sure you use CamelCase capitalisation in them i.e #HashTags, so screen readers don’t try and read them out as one word. And make sure you include alt-text with your images.

3. Check your third-party providers meet accessibility standards – Many businesses in the sector use thirdparty suppliers to manage online bookings or payments. Even though you don’t control them, you should be aware of whether the suppliers’ services are accessible. For example, if an ‘iframe’ is used to present a date-picker or payment confirmation dialogue without the right coding, a blind person using a screen-reader might not be able to book or pay. So, it’s worth doing an inventory of what can and can’t be controlled, to build a picture of what you can and can’t influence and change supplier to a more accessible one if you can.

4. Don’t overlook PDFs – PDFs are often used for things such as menus, booking confirmations, terms and conditions, coupons and vouchers. To make sure they are accessible, start with using the authoring tool’s accessibility functions (in Word, Google Docs, PowerPoint or InDesign), and then test documents with Adobe Acrobat when they are converted to PDF. EFFECTING LASTING CHANGE

In 2019, we turned our attentions to creating the international standard for digital accessibility – ISO 30071- 1. We did this because we wanted to effect real change and provide a clear framework to help companies ensure their accessibility approach is robust, sustainable and effective.

Since then, we have developed the Digital Accessibility Maturity Scorecard. This free tool provides a review of your organisation around nine key areas of digital accessibility linked to the Standard, helping you identify gaps and providing guidance on where and how to best make improvements.

For those businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition, benchmarking your current performance in digital accessibility is certainly the best place to start to build a loyal following among customers who right now are being overlooked.