Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council Present Gold Award for Calorie Labelling

July 19, 2019

McDonald’s is the first restaurant in the area to secure the Calorie Wise Gold Award from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council, for displaying the calorie information of all menu items in its restaurants.

Calorie Wise is a scheme developed by the FSA and district councils across Northern Ireland which encourages food businesses to display calorie information on their menu, enabling customers to make informed food choices when eating out and on the go.

A Calorie Wise Gold and Silver tiered system has been introduced, where Gold is awarded to food businesses which display the calories of all food and drink menu items and Silver recognises those which display the calories of 30% of their menu items.

Commenting on the award McDonald’s UK&I Company Nutritionist Jessica Weston commented: “We want to make sure we provide our customers with calorie information in order to help them to make an informed decision when choosing from our range of meal options. All of our calorie information is available on our menu boards, on our website and via our mobile phone app. Receiving the gold award further re-enforces our commitment to listening to our customers and adapting and evolving to meet their needs.”

Welcoming the company's participation in the scheme, Maeve Carey, Environmental Health Officer, Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council added: “We are pleased to award McDonald's restaurants across our area with Calorie Wise Gold, for displaying calorie information of their entire menus. The scheme is designed to provide customers with the information they need to make informed choices when eating out.  Participating restaurants will display a Calorie Wise sticker and their staff will be trained to assist customers. Calorie labelling can positively affect our food and drink choices and we encourage more businesses to opt in to this scheme.”

Calorie Wise is open to any catering business, whether it's a restaurant, takeaway, cafe, coffee shop, pub, sandwich shop or staff canteen.  For more information on the scheme and how to participate, visit www.food.gov.uk/CalorieWise