Two thirds of consumers (67%) want to know the nutritional information of every dish on the menu when they eat out, according to a survey from Fourth, the leading software partner to the hospitality industry which provides a recipe and menu engineering solution.

Following the introduction of allergen legislation in November 2014 stating that restaurants had to list the presence of the 14 main allergens, the demand for further total menu transparency of nutritional information has been driven by a wider consumer trend of healthy eating.

The survey, which was conducted across a nationally representative panel of over 1,500 consumers, also revealed that half of us start at least one healthy eating plan each year – lasting three and a half weeks on average. A third of consumers also worry about ordering a menu item as they can’t trust what is in it.

With 45% of consumers believing a ‘healthy eating plan’ gets in the way of their social life, accommodating for this new group with total menu transparency of nutritional information presents a great opportunity for operators to boost loyalty and drive sales.

Commenting on the statistics, Catherine Marshall, from Fourth said: “As a nation we’re becoming increasingly devoted to following a healthy eating plan, which has created a new consumer group of healthy eaters who chop and change their eating requirements.

“Catering for this fickle group can be challenging, as they constantly switch between a range of lifestyle choices, so it is imperative that menus offer full transparency of accurate nutritional and allergen information, which can be tricky across large estates.

“Displaying nutrition and allergen information that consumers can trust is a huge opportunity to drive both customer visits and satisfaction; this group of people are disproportionately influential when choosing where to eat out with their friends.

“To overcome this, we’re increasingly seeing savvy operators streamline processes with our recipe and menu engineering solution which allows them to instantly update nutritional information on their website, app, digital signage, tills and much more, whenever they make a menu change.”

(source: Fourth)