Menu Marketing of Healthy

Taste and Flavor is the main reason restaurant diners select one menu item over another.  Unless food tastes good, no one buys it.  Health concerns are also important, but they are secondary to the palate.  Diners are now more health sensitive than ever.  Even though the latest manifestation of healthful dining, low carb, turned out to be a craze, other health buzz concerns are part of the same healthful eating trend.
Healthy Menuing Trends

Currently, 13.2% of all menu items list a healthy reference.  Since 1996, healthy references in specific menu items have grown 1.2 percentage points for an approximate 10% gain.  On an industry wide scale, menus change slowly, with most operators changing only a few items per year.  Some operators, however, revamp the entire menu. Even though, specific menu items do not reference a healthy aspect, the general tenor of the menu or the menu section can benefit from a healthful dining upgrade.  Source: Menu Mine database of chain menus
Menu Messages

Printed menus and menu boards let the customer know what is available and at what price.  Increasingly, menus are marketing healthy.  As shown in the table below, 85% of the time “healthy” dining terms are listed in the item description compared to 24% in the item name and 19% in both places.  There are pros and cons to listing healthy in either place.  Depending on the menu item, the healthy reference and its placement might even have a negative effect.  If possible, it may be wise to test or closely monitor placement and sales.

Healthy Menu Items

All food groups and menu parts have a history of being flagged as healthy and this includes desserts, appetizers, sandwiches, side dishes, entrees, breakfast items and burgers.  The same goes for restaurant chains in all market segments.   All diners and all dining chains have a healthy eating agenda.

What are the Healthy Terms?

There are at least twenty healthy dining terms that are currently used on restaurant menus.  Some terms are positive, such as Fresh, Light or Natural.  Others are unpleasant and focus on Fat or Cholesterol or they are regimental and focus on Carbs and Calories.  Food group terms including Vegetarian, Vegan and Grain may have been perceived as restrictive, but that may change.  South Beach, Atkins and other diets popularized in grocery tabloids have not made the transition from the magazine page to the menu page.

Tasty Vegetarian

About one in five (18%) foodservice operators (including chains, independents and non-commercial) lists at least one vegetarian item on the menu.  Vegetarian items are on the menu because they are tasty and healthy.  Even the much maligned steamed veggies have undergone a transition because of better preparation and flavorful applications.  Flavorful items to consider adding to the menu include Vegetarian Stir-Fry, Pizza Vegetarian, Vegetarian Macaroni Casserole, Vegetarian Chili, Vegetable Tacos, Veggie Burrito, Vegetarian Lasagna, Vegan Burger, Vegan Sandwich.  Veggie entrées and sides retain their healthy appeal with tasty applications such as light wine sauces, spicy bean sauces, zesty horseradish sauces, light lemon butter or plum tomato sauces.
Market Segments

Midscale chains (index of 100) are more likely than midscale independents (index of 95), casual chains (index of 92) and QSR Chains to characterize a menu item as healthy, either in a general sense or very specifically. "Healthy” menu items most frequently appear as Center of the Plate entrees (19% of all healthy characterized items are COP), Prepared Entrees (15%), Sandwiches (14%), Salads (11%, Appetizers (7%), Breakfast Entrees (9%) and Others (25%).
Grilling-Deep Frying Index

Over the last ten years, grilling as a cooking method relative to deep frying has changed dramatically.  Right now, grilling is three times more common than deep frying on menus (index of 301).  In 1996, grilling was 2.5 times more prevalent than deep frying (index of 252).
Fresh

Fresh is a frequently used term on menus.  Fresh is a qualitative term.  Fresh is not health specific in the way that low fat, low cal or low carb is.  Fresh, however, is a very powerful term and one that may have more impact than the no’s and the low’s. 

Menu items that are “fresh”, should be characterized on the menu as fresh.  Fresh is most frequently paired on the menu with vegetables (35%), fruit (26%), eggs (12%), cooking terms (8%), herbs/spices (6%), cheese (4%), beverages (3%), juice (3%) and others (3%).

Vegetables associated most frequently with fresh are fresh tomatoes, fresh mushrooms, fresh spinach, fresh basil, fresh greens, fresh veggies and fresh garlic.  Fruits mentioned most are fresh fruit, fresh strawberries, fresh juice, fresh berries and fresh apples. Fresh baked is the most common fresh cooking term, followed by fresh sautéed and grilled fresh.
Bottom Line

Healthy food options are required on all menus.  No single item on American menus is unhealthy.  The unhealthy stigma comes from huge portions and bad choices when diners do not vary diets and consistently order fatty or high carb menu items.  To please an increasingly health conscious clientele, more menu items should be flagged as healthy (low or no fats, carbs, calories).  Diners are also on the prowl for assurance that wholesome items and ingredients are prepared.  General references to fresh, light and healthy plus identification of specifically wholesome menu items pleases customers.  Subtle references to healthy are the key.  Too much Healthy Overtness, however, may remind people of blandness and may lose the sale.