Monday, February 02, 2009

Applebee's sued over nutrition labeling questions

Yoni reports at Weighty Matters:
Have you eaten off a Weight Watchers menu in the past four years?

If it was at an Applebee's you might want to give Tara Kelly a call.

If you remember a few months back I blogged about the calorie labeling lawsuit that alleges misrepresented calorie counts at Applebee's restaurants from items off the Weight Watcher's menu whereby independent tests revealed some items to contain double the fat and calories posted.

Apparently now 4 separate law firms have launched class action lawsuits and a recent news story reported Gilbert Oshinsky lawyer Tara Kelly hopes to represent, "every person who has eaten from the Weight Watchers Menu in the last four years".

Given there are over 2,000 Applebee's in 49 states, 17 international countries and one U.S. territory, and lots of folks on Weight Watchers, I imagine Tara will be pretty busy.

The trial is scheduled for 2010.
U.S. Food Policy has been offering unsolicited advice about nutrition labeling to Applebee's for some years, but I don't think the restaurant managers read it.

2 comments:

  1. It's not only about customers' perceptions of value that keep portions large -- at least not that on its own. It's about ticket averages. Restaurants have limited seats and a limited number of people they can seat in a given time. So they need to maximize revenues for those limited resources.

    While food costs are relative to portion size, all other costs are fixed. So the more a restaurant can charge each diner, the less the costs, other than food, become as a percentage of revenue. So it's better for a restaurant to give out large portions, or even offer bottomless pasta bowls or whatever, if it can charge extra for each diner. Even a couple bucks can mean a huge revenue difference in the aggregate.

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  2. I had been meaning to contact Tara.

    I've been wondering about proof.

    Do you need to have saved your receipt?

    Regards,
    Yoni

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