Yum Brands Inc. announced that it will posting nutritional information on menu boards in its corporate owned stores. Yum Brands owns the KFC, Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s, Pizza Hut and A&W All-American Food brands. According to company spokesman Jonathan Blum:
“We believe this is the right leadership role…to be providing more information so consumers can make better-informed purchase decisions about the food they eat,”
This move gained some praise:
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, called it a groundbreaking announcement that is “fabulous news for health-conscious consumers.”
However, from a consumer standpoint, I think Yum Brands only stands to lose. As you can see from KFC’s menu, there is not too much one would consider light. Not only that, but I don’t think this fact is surprising at all to anyone.
Where is the benefit to Yum’s shareholders? It is highly unlikely that the health focused population will begin to view any Yum Brand restaurant as a healthy alternative and thus frequent them more often.
The people who go to these restaurants are typically those who know that the food served isn’t the most healthy. As I blogged earlier in my New York Fries post, there is an overemphasis on being healthy, when a good segment of the population wants to have something unhealthy once and a while.
By seemingly caving to the healthy living trend, Yum Brands may alienate its existing tribe. Seeing the calorie count next to the menu may make patrons feel guilty, forcing them to feed their chicken drumstick vices elsewhere.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Malcolm,
I think I disagree with the statement “The people who go to these restaurants are typically those who know that the food served isn’t the most healthy.”
I think the majority of the people who regularly go to these restaurants are exactly the opposite…they don’t know that the food served here is unhealthy as such. In fact, they dont even know how to read nutrition labels on food products. In fact, even people who think they know what they are eating they don’t know the difference between Saturated Fats and Trans Fats…or the fact that if a product says 0% Trans Fat, it does not mean there are absolutely no trans fats in them.
My opinion: people who know that these restaurants are unhealthy are not the population Yum Brands is really marketing to.