Just Eat is the latest company to trial eco-scoring on menus. The food delivery platform is working with five restaurants in Brighton on a 12-week trial that will see ‘traffic light’ carbon labels added to main meals.
Smoque Burger, No Catch, Brewdog, Fat Burgers and Desserts, and Fat Pizza will all display ratings from A (very low emissions) to E (very high emissions). Fat Pizza is trialling the concept at 40 stores nationwide through the Just Eat platform.
Jaz Rabadia, head of responsible business and sustainability at Just Eat, said the trial is aimed at “empowering and educating” consumers on the impact their choices can have. The data, provided by My Emissions, is also being used to help restaurants make more informed decisions about the ingredients they procure.
The use of environmental data by caterers, restaurants and pubs is the focus of a new Footprint Intelligence report – ‘A transparent future for foodservice: how environmental data is greening supply chains and empowering the public’ – launched this week. The report looks at how businesses are using data to reformulate their menus and nudge consumers towards more sustainable choices.
WSH for example is putting carbon scores on main meals across all its sites. “We can actually understand where our hotspots are, so we can focus on buying less of a product or a more sustainable, low-carbon product,” says Mike Hanson, director of sustainable business at the contract caterer. “And we can then encourage our chefs and managers to make better choices in terms of structuring their menus.”
A number of other companies are also doing trials and scoring their own dishes in a bid to provide the information consumers want in the absence of government regulation or harmonised voluntary schemes (another hot debate covered in the report).
Sky and Microsoft are both trialling concepts in their canteens, while Compass and Aramark are also offering indicators on menus that show the environmental impact of the choices available. Wahaca, Leon, Ask Italian and Peach Pubs are among the high street chains to have also tested eco-labelling.
Around one in five (21%) consumers have seen such a score on a menu and of those 75% said it influenced their choice, according to a survey conducted by Vypr for Footprint.
The report, ‘A transparent future for foodservice: how environmental data is greening supply chains and empowering the public’, produced by Footprint Intelligence in association with Nutritics is available here.
