Getting Clean in a Good Way
The growing trend of restaurants cleaning up their menus by eliminating artificial ingredients such as preservatives, additives, sweeteners, and food coloring has been a positive step towards advocating for consumer health.
“We have seen this strong trend in first identifying allergens, then GMOs and now it has made a rapid push towards identifying ingredients that are clean, i.e. without additives or artificial ingredients. It is a tough job to do this task properly but thanks to our leading technology we can handle it and produce these free-from lists for our nutritional partner clients. It drives home my personal mantra that food is health care while medicine is sick-care,” says MenuTrinfo Founder and CEO Betsy Craig.
While larger chains like Noodles and Company and Panera Bread have taken great measures to provide transparent menu items, local and regional restaurants are also following suit including MenuTrinfo’s client Smiling Moose Rocky Mountain Deli, a fast casual restaurant with 18 restaurant locations across seven states. Working with several chefs and conducting a full nutritional analysis, the restaurant chain crafted a new menu consisting of bold flavors and fresh ingredients that will roll out by the end of the year. For Smiling Moose, transparency has always been top of mind.
“Fresh ingredients and bold flavors have always been a priority for us,” said Sue Daggett, President of Smiling Moose Rocky Mountain Deli. “Our new menu now offers guests a wider variety of gluten-free and vegetarian options and our fresh baked baguettes used for our signature hot sandwiches have always been free of artificial preservatives. While our focus continues to be on hearty and adventurous offerings, our new menu now offers nearly 20 options that are under 600 calories – all a part of our ongoing effort to offer guests a wide variety of options.”
As more restaurants commit to go fresh, it is important to sustain a competitive advantage by keeping up with patron dietary needs. MenuTrinfo offers full-service nutrition solutions with a team of nutrition experts that can help foodservice professionals develop safe and healthy menu items.
MenuTrinfo is dedicated to helping foodservice operators protect the lives and health of their customers by meeting or exceeding new nutritional labeling regulations as required by law and by partnering with restaurants to provide safe products and procedures that meet a wide range of dietary restrictions. MenuTrinfo’s complete suite of services include menu analysis, AllerChef and AllerTrain certification and training in the areas of gluten-free menus, specialty menu development, nutritional counseling and policy development. The company’s nutritional analysis is the only full-service solution for nutritional labeling that is insured and based on an FDA-approved process. MenuTrinfo clients cover the spectrum of foodservice, from large universities to restaurants and catering operations. For more information, go to www.MenuTrinfo.com or call 970-295-4370.