New Tech Tools Help Restaurants Count Calories For Consumers

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is making the restaurant industry step up its efforts to make nutritional information available to consumers.

According to an article in QSR Magazine, food service concepts with 20 or more locations will be required to publicly post calorie information of standard items on menus starting on December 31, 2016. They’ll also need to have total fat, calories from fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, fiber, sugar and protein information on hand for customers who request it.

In order to make this transition easier and more cost efficient, restaurants will need to start relying on technology to calculate the nutritional information of their products and meals. Using tech tools to keep track of nutritional information is nothing new for American consumers—programs like Diet.com’s “Nutrition on the Go” and HealtyDiningFinder.com already help people figure out healthy food options on the go. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has a national database that both restaurants and consumers can use to pull helpful nutritional info.

Whether restaurants join pre-existing platforms or rely on their own data to calculate nutritional information, it’s clear that they’ll need to implement the best technology for their brand in order to make it possible. Otherwise, restaurants may not be able to provide accurate information that’s up to FDA approved methods and standards every time they alter a recipe. The restaurant industry is predicting that as the deadline nears, new technology and software will be made available.