Deliveroo, the leading food delivery platform, is making a New Year commitment to lead the way in displaying calorie information, helping consumers make healthy choices when they order.
The firm is introducing new tech changes that will enable restaurants to display calorie information for each menu item, helping consumers make informed choices. Already, major national restaurant brands have committed to adding calorie information, showing how Deliveroo is driving change throughout the food industry.
Deliveroo already has a huge and growing range of healthy options on its platform, but is committed to going further to make healthy eating more accessible. The company is working with hundreds of restaurant partners to help them develop new healthy dishes, and is working with nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert to develop a new, healthy menu exclusively for the platform.
This comes as a new poll commissioned by Deliveroo shows that the public want to know more about the nutritional content of their delivered food. 54% of people would like to see more information on the calorie content of the food they order for delivery from restaurants and takeaways (37% do not want more information); and calorie content is the nutritional information consumers would find most helpful to have on menus (34%), ahead of information on fat (23%), salt (16%) or sugar content (19%).
In its response to the Government’s consultation on calorie labelling, Deliveroo is supportive of the principle of calorie labelling, but raises a number of issues. The company wants to see an exemption for the small firms; a suitable implementation period for businesses; and nothing to impede innovation and the customer experience. The changes Deliveroo is announcing show that the industry is prepared to make progressive changes in this area voluntarily.
The changes Deliveroo is making are:
1) Increasing nutritional information on a dish-by-dish level
• In 2019 Deliveroo is rolling out a brand new menu system to display dish-by-dish calorie information. Already, major national restaurant brands [Burger King, KFC, Pho, Jamie's Italian, Yo Sushi, Barburrito] have signed up to adding calorie information to their menus.
• All restaurants who work with Deliveroo in the UK will be able to add calorie information for each dish and customers will be able to see the information from February 2019.
• This will be rolled out globally to all restaurants Deliveroo works with in 13 markets across 2019.
• Deliveroo will be writing to all restaurants on the platform urging them to make use of these measures.
2) Working with nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert
• Leading nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert is working on a specially-designed, exclusively-for-Deliveroo healthy menu made up of dishes from nine restaurants on the platform. The meals on this menu will be nutritionally selected following specific criteria, being low in fat, salt and sugar and high in fibre. There will be over 70 dishes on the menu, covering breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• This menu will be labelled as ‘nutritionist recommended’ on the platform so it is quick and easy for consumers to find. These menus will dispel the myth that you can’t have healthy foods from high street restaurants or that you can’t have healthy foods for delivery or takeaway.
3) Deliveroo is ramping up the number of healthy options on the platform
As part of the company’s long term commitment to having healthy options for all occasions and at all price points, Deliveroo is working with hundreds of Restaurants to help them create brand new healthy dishes and menus. This is part of Deliveroo’s long-term commitment to broaden the company’s selection to include more healthy dishes.
4) Deliveroo announces major marketing campaign on healthy options
Deliveroo is preparing a major marketing campaign aimed at highlighting healthy options on the platform. Deliveroo is working with hundreds of gyms across the country, including Pure Gym, David Lloyd, Everyone Active and Nuffield Health, covering 274 gyms locations in the UK.
Will Shu, founder and CEO of Deliveroo, said, “Deliveroo’s outlook is simple: the way to eat healthy is by having more information and more selection. Consumers should have amazing food whenever and wherever they want it, but Deliveroo wants to also enable customers to be aware of what they’re eating. We want to make it simpler, easier and quicker to find healthy meals with new information and new options on our platform.
“The way to eat healthy is not by excluding foods. There should not be a choice between healthy food and amazing food. We are pleased to be working with our restaurant partners and nutritional experts to empower consumers and to expand the healthy options available to them.”
Victoria Robertson, Head of Food Innovation, KFC UK & Ireland, said, “It’s really important to us that we give our fans all the right information they need to make informed choices, so we’re very happy to work with Deliveroo to display clear, understandable calorie information on the app.
“We have a long-running nutrition strategy, which is focused on making it easier for our customers to make lighter choices – and earlier this year, we announced a commitment to reduce calories per serving. We’re really glad that our partners are taking a similar leadership position on this, and hope this new tool from Deliveroo will make a real difference.”
Libby Andrews, Marketing Director at Pho said, “So much of our menu is healthy enough to eat daily, and we’re excited to share this information with our customers via Deliveroo at a time when most people are looking to make better diet and lifestyle choices. We hope it will make Pho an even more popular option for a healthy night in.”