Food Commission urges KFC, Pizza Hut to show calorie counts

The Food Commission is calling on KFC and Pizza Hut to follow the US lead of providing calorie information on their menu boards. The lobby group says without it consumers are failing to make healthy food choices.

In the US, the calorie content of different products will appear on menu boards in company-owned stores.

Food Commission health campaigner, Anna Glayzer, says that KFC and Pizza Hut “should treat their European customers as openly as they do their American customers and provide nutritional information at the point of sale here.”

She adds that customers are having to “rely on guess work if they want to make healthier choices”.

KFC and Pizza Hut maintain that nutritional information is available in UK stores and online.

A KFC and Pizza Hut UK spokesman says it is now in the process of reviewing ways to provide nutritional information to it customers, including calorie count, but would not go into detail about what changes it would make in stores.

“This initiative will be reviewed over time alongside other means of information and communication,” the spokesman says.

Yum! Brands, the company which owns both KFC and Pizza Hut, has called on the US Congress to enact federal legislation that would create uniform, menu board guidelines for all restaurants which sell prepared food. However as yet, Yum! Brands has not made any similar demand on the UK government.