Chain restaurant nutrition labeling: An overview of implementation and evaluation in Seattle/King County

Seattle/King County was among the first to implement a restaurant nutrition labeling (aka menu labeling) policy. There is momentum around the country to pass similar policies as one way to improve access to nutrition information so that consumers can make informed decisions about what to buy when eating out. The innovative policy may also be one strategy to help reduce obesity, a major public health issue, fueled in part by excessive caloric intake. Common concerns about such policies include the limited evidence of the impact on consumers and the potential negative impact on sales transactions. The impacts of such policies are only beginning to be understood. We present an overview of the nutrition labeling regulation in Seattle/King County and highlight how it differs from others, including the proposed national menu labeling policy. We also present an overview of our comprehensive evaluation for this natural experiment. Using econometric, qualitative and quantitative methods, our panel will describe findings on lessons learned from the passage and implementation of the King County policy as well as impacts on restaurant transactions, restaurant environments, menus offerings, customer purchases, calories purchased, and customer perceptions about the policy. We will briefly summarize results from our population-based telephone surveys and customer receipt studies and highlight key features of the nutrition labeling policy that are potentially most and least effective in changing customer awareness and use of restaurant nutrition labels.