Examination of Witnesses (Questions 404-419)
MR NEIL
RIDING, MS
PAULA VENNELLS,
MR PAUL
FARROW AND
MR MARK
KERR
29 JUNE 2004
Q404 Chairman: Good afternoon and welcome
to this session of the Food Information Sub-Committee. I understand
that you want to make a very short statement before we asked you
our questions. We are happy to take that if it is short because,
as you will appreciate, we are running a little behind time. I
would invite you to make that statement and perhaps introduce
your fellow witnesses.
Mr Riding: Firstly, thank you
for inviting us and including us. Secondly, if I can introduce
my colleagues and what we do. My name is Neil Riding and I am
the Managing Director of Beefeater Restaurants. My colleague Mark
is the Corporate Affairs Director for Whitbread, Paula is the
Marketing Director for Whitbread Restaurants and Paul is the Procurement
Director for Whitbread Restaurants. We are here to represent Whitbread
and as such our views should not be taken as representing the
hospitality industry as a whole. I have three points to make which
might be helpful before we do start. As you will see from our
submission, we operate a number of different brands, restaurants,
cafés and health and fitness operations. All of our outlets
serve food and drink and all our pub and High Street restaurants
are table service; that means that food is ordered from a menu
and then delivered to table.
Q405 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed
for those helpful and short introductory comments. From the evidence
that you have submitted in writing, it would seem your view is
that there is not a need for the restaurant/pub/café sector
to be required to provide food information but you said that you
would question whether restaurants were the most appropriate environment
to start to promote a public education process of healthier eating.
Is it not somewhat irresponsible to suggest that your sector does
not have a duty to its customers in this way? With people spending
more and more money eating out, drinking out and whatever, is
there not a strong case for the requirements for food information
being much stronger in your sector? People are trying to eat healthily
and in what they buy from the supermarkets, so is that message
not going to then be negative if they are not getting information
from people like yourselves?
Mr Riding: We have a role to play
and there are a number of bodies here that have a role to play
in this. The point that we were highlighting here is the nature
of our business and that people tend to treat it as a bit more
of an indulgence, a bit more treat and it is a lot less regular
than a meal occasion at home, for example. Research would tell
us that people tend to not perhaps take into account health issues
in the same way as they would in a supermarket, for example.
Q406 Chairman: Is it not up to consumers
to make their own decision about how far they want to treat themselves
in spite of what is necessarily the most healthiest option? Surely,
there should be the information available in order that they can
make the choice. For example, would it not make sense to provide
information about alcohol units in drinks?
Mr Riding: We do provide alcohol
information. Outside a very discrete area of food allergies and
intolerances, we do not get asked for that type of information.
Again, it is the nature of our business. If people come out, it
tends to be with family or with friends, it is a weekend and they
may not have been out for three or four weeks or whatever and
people tend to suspend their judgment as to what might be healthy
or not. The other thing that we would point to is that people
tend to select from a wide range of items on a menu and that could
be anything from the full steak with chips through to salads.
Q407 Chairman: If I went into your restaurants,
would I find information about the alcohol units and the drinks
on the menu or would I find information about the calorie content
or other food information on the menu?
Mr Riding: On the menu, you would
find a brief description of what the meal comprises. It is a legal
requirement to actually tell people what the alcohol content is
and that is made available to people. What you would find is a
message on the menu which suggests that if you are worried about
content because of allergy or intolerance, you should ask a member
of staff and then what we do is supply—if I can wave this
before you—that, which is allergy and intolerance information
for one menu in one brand and one of the things that we have to
face is that, when people come out and they want to get the information
they need from a menu, if we tried to put all that on to a menu,
what would that look like? We clearly have a role to play in here
somewhere and it was fascinating to listen to our colleagues from
supermarkets as to what traffic lights may look like because we
would be extremely interested in taking some of that learning
and applying it to some of our menus.
Chairman: It would be helpful if you
could provide the Committee with the document which you have just
been indicating, if you are able to do that.
Q408 Joan Ruddock: How often are you
asked for anything at all?
Mr Riding: In terms of allergies
and intolerances?
Q409 Joan Ruddock: Yes. You have a notice
saying, "If want more information, ask us." How often
do people actually ask you about anything?
Mr Riding: In an average restaurant,
probably two or three times in the evening and that would be specific
to allergies. I personally have an allergy to dairy products.
We had lunch in the Marriot Hotel across the way and I asked if
they could give me some advice and they were able to give me advice
and actually cook me something to order that did not include dairy.
What we do not get asked for is anything to do with nutritional
content. Again, we have a role to play in this but we see that
this is a going to be a start of a big educational journey and
clearly our role is going to grow. Where our role lies alongside
skills, some of the big supermarkets etc, we are not quite so
sure yet but one thing we are absolutely sure on is that this
is a big issue and it is going to stay and get bigger for us.
Q410 Mr Jack: In paragraph six of your
evidence to the Committee, you say, "Currently our brands
do not as a matter of course provide nutritional information"
and you say that the primary reason for that is that people do
not ask for it. What do you feel obliged to offer people by way
of information?
Mr Riding: At the moment, we offer
the information that you see in front of you there which is what
we do get asked for, so that is specific to people's identified
allergies and intolerances.
Q411 Mr Jack: In the same paragraph,
you go on to regale us with the information about, "All Whitbread
suppliers have been briefed on the Company's `healthier eating'
initiative." That is wonderful. Then you talk about "Product
and ingredient brief forms now include a requirement to record
salt, sugar and fat", so you are building up the awareness
of all this stuff. Do you not think that a simple message to customers,
"In formulating our menus, we have taken into account the
need to minimise blah-blah-blah" and give a message of reassurance?
Mr Kerr: I think it is fair to
say that the catering industry has been slower into this debate
than the supermarkets. Our research consistently shows, as Neil
said, that the majority of people are not interested. Indeed,
there is quite a chunk of people who actively do not want to know
because of the nature of the experience they are going to have
in a restaurant. However, it would be naïve of us and stupid
to not assume that customer reaction might change over time, partly
because of initiatives that the supermarkets and others have taken.
As a consequence, we have started from perhaps a standing start
with our suppliers to look at the issue of salt because that was
one that the Government particularly wanted us to look to and,
at the same time, we took fat and sugar on board as well because
it seemed fairly self evident to us that they were going to be
the next targets. So, this is the beginning of the piece of work
which has been going now for around 12 to 18 months. It is exceptionally
complex for us to do it for a lot of the reasons that were described
earlier by the supermarkets multiplied by the fact that we are
serving dishes not packaged products, so it does become more difficult.
What this was meant to identify is that we are not doing nothing.
What we are doing is getting our information in the right place
and, when the customer identifies the fact that they would like
that information, we will then be able to react with accurate
information in the right form but we do not know what form that
would be and we do not quite know when the customer is going to
make that request in our environment.
Q412 Mr Jack: One of the things that
forms part of the Whitbread offer are David Lloyd leisure centres.
Bearing in mind that people who go to enjoy those facilities are
pretty clued up about exercise, fitness and diet, do you offer
any special information to your customers in those environments?
Ms Vennells: Yes, we do. On the
menus in David Lloyd, we make healthy suggestions/observations
on the menu pages and the menus are designed more from a healthy
eating point of view and the simple reason for that is that that
is actually what those customers have asked for.
Q413 Mr Jack: Do I deduce from that that
those who are the self-selecting segment of the market who have
decided that healthy living is what they want are happy to have
their knowledge base advanced but the rest of your customers who
do not appear to be in that category do not get any help at all?
Ms Vennells: They are not in the
same category at all. David Lloyd customers are in David Lloyd
leisure centres because they are expending calories and they snack
occasionally when they are there. It is not a big part of David
Lloyd at all. The customers who come into Whitbread's other restaurant
brands are there for a family treat in the vast majority of cases
which are very, very different usage occasions altogether. As
Mark said, if the customers coming into our restaurants want that
information, we will, over a period of time, be able to give it
to them. The challenge for us that we are really struggling with
and it was, in a sense from my point of view, not helpful in hearing
the supermarkets because, if they have problems with labelling,
then for me to think how I get nutritional information on to a
menu is very difficult. We are having conversations and we met
recently with the FSA and shared with them the work that we are
doing. We are coming here to say that we are very aware of this,
we realise it is important, but Whitbread has for hundreds of
years been a very responsible company and we are continuing with
that approach. However, we do not actually know what the answer
is just yet.
Q414 Joan Ruddock: There is a huge difference
if you are offering a fatty mixed grill with big chips and loads
of salt and it is delicious—I can hear Michael salivating
away there!—and a huge great sugary pie with masses of cream
and chocolate droppings on the top swilled down with a few lagers
and having the pasta with some fish, salad and a glass of red
wine. You know that there are extremes and you presumably are
able to offer the various dishes within that spectrum. So, something
could be done but what you seem to be saying is that because the
customers are not asking for it, you do not feel the need to lead
them and, to me, that is where the challenge seems to lie for
your industry and I would say that your responsibility lies there.
Of course, you cannot have pages of labelling but there are ways
of demonstrating that some things are more healthier than others
and there are ways, I would suggest, in terms of pricing policy,
where it is possible to offer a dish with a cream topping or without
a cream topping and various moves could be made which you could
lead on and it seems to me that you are saying, "We don't
have to do this because nobody is pushing us."
Mr Riding: I am sorry if we gave
that impression. I will give you an example. If you eat in a Beefeater
Restaurant now and you order the big steak, then you will be offered
a choice of salad, jacket potato, wild rice or chips. So, we are
trying to give people that option and it is within people's comprehension
that rice is going to be better for them than perhaps the chips.
Q415 Joan Ruddock: Not if they do not
want to know, which is what you have said. If we are to help people,
if we are to have labelling which is perhaps going to prompt people
to think before they actually make the order, then usually people
have to see it with their own eyes, so some labelling would, I
suggest, make some difference to some people.
Mr Kerr: From our perspective,
the difficulty you have identified is clearly, on every menu,
you could choose, as distinct from your choice, an obviously healthy
starter and a fruit salad pudding. The choice is obviously there.
If you are suggesting the traffic light kind of notion, then,
as we have said, as the ideas of how that might be introduced
are developed, we would be very interested to look at that in
a positive way despite the fact that a dish is different from
a packaged product and we are going to have to be careful about
how that would be done on a menu. There are other ways, for example
websites that can be used for that kind of information but that
is not terribly helpful when you are sitting at the table making
your choice. I think that the choice is there; we will increase
the offer of food on the menu that will reflect what customers
want because it is commercial business and, as I said before,
the depth with which the other food suppliers, supermarkets and
others, get their education into the psyche will determine how
people make the choices on restaurant menus.
Mr Mitchell: What a terrible puritan
you are! I do not go into a restaurant to have sermons preached
at me about what is good for me or to have a label on the huge
chocolate cake saying, "This will make you fat." I go
in to eat it
Joan Ruddock: We have it in the House
of Commons.
Q416 Mr Mitchell: We have a difference
in the House of Commons in that the restaurant actually does provide
small portions of healthy food. Surely, all these comments could
be catered for by having a kind of healthy option menu as well
as the gorge your guts menu?
Mr Riding: It takes us a long
way there. The point I was going to make about the chips or rice
etc is that most people still plump for chips. We have had fresh
fruit salad on the menu and you would be amazed at how little
we actually sell of it. Until we get to a stage where, out there,
the public maybe has a deeper understanding of this and is prepared
to have the weekly/fortnightly indulgence as part of the balanced
diet as opposed to a complete step aside from it, I think we are
still going to have a deafening silence. And w have asked people
what nutritional information they want. What we are saying is
that we are trying to move where we can and we would need to find
something that was publicly recognisable like a traffic light
that could be transferred into a menu that did not make it look
like war and peace and would deter people.
Q417 Mr Mitchell: Do you have a healthy
options menu?
Mr Riding: We have items on menus
which are—
Q418 Mr Mitchell: Starred or asterisked?
Mr Riding: No.
Q419 Mr Mitchell: Would it not be better
to do that? Not to turn it into War and Peace but you just
have to offer a couple of dishes for people like Joan, not like
me!
Ms Vennells: I do not think we
are saying that we would not do it, I think we are saying that,
genuinely, we would be very interested in finding a solution because,
responsibly, we think it is a good thing to do. You heard earlier
of the difficulties if you start having traffic lights on fat
and salt and sugar and it is quite how you make that work on a
menu. We had, just a couple of years ago, an arrangement with
Weight Watchers, so we had Weight Watchers points on one of our
brand menus and, actually, it was singularly unhelpful.
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