How to make your healthy menu options at your restaurant sell

What really matters when it comes to getting consumers to buy into healthier fare? Having worked with restaurants around the country for six years, over at Health Check™ we have learned a thing or two about designing healthy foods that are nutritious, delicious and a treat for all the senses. Fifty per cent of surveyed Canadians say they want healthier options at restaurants. Yet, restaurants say that even when they offer healthy choices, their customers don’t select them. So, what’s the problem? Simply put: healthy food gets noticed when it dresses to impress.

One study in New York schools conducted a reorganization of the school cafeterias to see what really matters when it comes to the sale of healthy food. This included a few small, achievable changes to existing fare in order to give healthy offerings a leg up, such as giving plain corn a more appealing name or offering more than one choice of side vegetables. These small changes increased the sales of healthy items.

This approach can easily be modified to fit your restaurant needs. Once you have your diners interested, it’s time to make the food live up to its tasty promises. Let’s not forget, taste is still the number one factor that guides diners’ decisions.

So, why not give healthy food a fighting chance at being selected over its less nutritious cousins? Let’s get consumers interested in healthier options so they select them not because they should but because they want to.