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Posts Tagged ‘Fast Food’

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What can we Expect from the Olympics Food Court?

Friday, June 1st, 2012

The Olympic Games have been promising us all that the food served this year will be the “best of British.”

This makes us all think of our traditional English goodies: Sunday roast, tea and scones, fish and chips, beef wellington, Cornish pasty along with an Eton mess and a pot of hot tea or a pint of ale. What we are getting isn’t far off, according to a sample menu that has been released.

The menu for what will be on offer accompanied with prices was released early this week and the list includes: Singapore noodles, chicken wings, pizza, pasta and chicken burritos.  There will also be African barbeques, fish and chips and the good old pie and mash.  Also at the Olympic Park is the biggest McDonald’s in the world, which has a capacity of seating 1,500.

Organisers have said that the menu will reflect the “heritage and diversity of British regional products and recipes.”The prices for the food look a little steep but they are for most big events so this is to be expected. For a coca-cola at the games, it will set you back £2.60 and a bottle of water will be £1.60. A pie and mash will be £8 and a beer will be £4.20.

As the main sponsors, McDonalds, will be providing 10% of meals over the course of the Olympics and will be one of 3 branded products that will feature: Heineken and Cadbury’s will be the other two.

Jan Matthews, the head of catering at Locog has said, “We are trying to make it feel like a food festival and we have walked round Borough Market several times to try and get that feel. There will be fruit barrows and stalls where you can buy different types of olives.

“While sport will take centre stage, the ‘Olympic experience’ that people will take away will be build from and influenced by a multitude of factors, one of the biggest will be food and drink.”

Although the majority of places offering food at the Olympics won’t need restaurant insurance, the restaurants in the surrounding area definitely will. It is a great way to ensure your business carry on running as usual even in the case of an unforeseen circumstance, especially during the Olympics.

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Fast Food Meals Healthier than NHS Hospital Meals

Monday, May 21st, 2012

The campaign group Sustain conducted a study which revealed a staggering 75% of NHS food had more saturated fat than a McDonald’s Big Mac burger. Furthermore, 60% of NHS food also had more salt than this popular fast food burger. However these troubling statistics are not limited to McDonalds, as the KFC Zinger Burger meal was found to have 6 times less salt than an NHS curry.

Looking at Italian dishes, 40% of NHS meals contained more saturated fat than a 9 inch Pizza Hut pizza and an NHS supplied pasta dishes had 3 times the daily recommended allowance of saturated fat and double the amount salt recommended.

This news is extremely worrying because for many years great measures have been taken across the country to encourage healthier eating. Alex Jackson of Sustain said, “It’s staggering to think sick patients could be better off eating at McDonald’s. Without standards, many meals will remain unhealthy and unappetising.”

25 NHS meals were examined in this study and one of the researchers commented, “Salt and saturated fat is linked to heart disease and strokes. Hospitals should provide tasty and healthy meals, rather than ones that could lead to more health problems.”

These food reports come in the wake of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley insisting that work is being done to ensure patients in the NHS receive nutritious meals. The quality has been so poor that many people have returned their meals untouched, consequently costing the NHS over £22million a year. Mr Lansley recently spoke on the Andrew Marr Show and stated that food quality under the labour government caused many patients to leave hospital malnourished. “It shouldn’t happen. I accept we need to ensure, and we are increasingly going to ensure, that patients who are in hospital get the right nutrition. To some extent it’s personalised, because what you need as a patient in terms of your diet often is very personal.”

These revelations are not just limited to the NHS. Many restaurants in the past have received bad publicity for providing extremely unhealthy meals. It is important for restaurants to have a balance of healthy and indulgent meals; otherwise customers may be reluctant to dine with them. So during the quieter months of business, both expected and unexpected, restaurateurs can have more peace of mind if they are covered with restaurant insurance.

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McDonald’s Latest Addition

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

The newest addition to the McDonalds range is a new healthy soft drink called Fruitizz. It will be available in all stores from next week (16th May).

This product is finally released after three years of product development research. They wanted to create a healthy new drink that still excites children but has a nutritional benefit. It consists of 60 per cent fruit juice from grapes, apples and raspberries combined with sparkling water. There are no added sugars, colours or flavours.

The chief executive and president at McDonalds UK said, “We are thrilled to be unveiling Fruitizz, a refreshing fizzy fruit juice drink that will help parents give children one of their five a day.

“For the past three years, we have been working hard behind the scenes to create a fizzy drink that is unlike anything else currently available in high street restaurants. We tried and tested 80 formulations in order to create the right product that delivers nutritional benefit as well as a new, exciting taste.”

The product went on trial in 62 McDonalds branches in Wales last year and 75 per cent of people who bought Fruitizz with a happy meal said they would choose it again.Fast food is traditionally unhealthy but McDonalds looks set to break the mould as they have embarked on a salt and sugar reduction programme. Last year the average happy meal contained 50 per cent less salt, 21 per cent less saturated fat and 31 per cent less sugar compared to the same product that was sold in 2000. Other healthy options that have been introduced to the happy meal menu are, carrot sticks, fruit bags, mineral water and semi skimmed milk.

By having this new healthy addition to the happy meal menu hopefully this will encourage good press as opposed to the bad press that has been featured recently that all fast food is bad for you. As a result we are sure that all people in the food industry will support the new release including, commercial restaurant insurance companies, manufacturers, critics, suppliers, staff and the general public.

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Burger King Menu Reinvention Similar to McDonalds

Monday, April 2nd, 2012

In recent years, Burger King has struggled to stay near the top of the fast-food chain.  The need for healthy eating has become increasingly important for people and oily burgers and fries are becoming less appealing. Competitors like Subway have taken advantage of this change in consumer attitude. Their wide range of salad-laden sandwiches has boosted their popularity, making them the second largest food chain in the country.  Like any other chain of restaurants, large or small, Subway will need to take out restaurant insurance for each new store they open.

Over the past year, Burger King Executives have been working tirelessly to evaluate all the items on their menu and work out what needs to be done in order to boost their dwindling sales.  While other restaurants like McDonalds, Subway and KFC have taken steps to provide healthier option meals, Burger King failed to do so.  That changed however when it was bought by new owners and 15 key executives spent 3 months assessing all aspects of the menu, from the vanilla content in ice cream to their method of frying.

After much debate they settled on a new menu which is currently available in the US, although some similar options can be purchased in the UK. The latest additions include chicken strips, chicken wraps, speciality salads and smoothies.  These new items are healthier than their usual offerings, but they still contain a few more calories than McDonalds.

In addition to similar calorie content, the actual food is very similar to what McDonalds have been offering for sometime. For example, Burger King has a “Ranch Crispy Chicken Snack Wrap” and a “Honey Mustard Crispy Chicken Snack Wrap”. These wraps are 370 and 390 calories respectively. Competing from McDonalds is their 350 calorie Ranch Snack Wrap with Crispy Chicken and their 330 calorie Honey Mustard Snack Wrap with Crispy Chicken. Burger King Executives can not deny that their food is alarmingly similar but they argue they are simply giving the consumers what they demand. President of Burger King’s North America operations, Steve Wiborg said “Consumers wanted more choices. Not just healthy choices, but choices they could get at the competition”.

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Burger King Release 708 Calorie Lamb Burger

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

One of the largest fast food chains in the country, Burger King, has released a new lamb burger. They were hoping it would be adopted as a healthier alternative to the beef burger, but the combination of the various ingredients has made it one of the highest calorie meals on the menu.

While this burger appears to be the only lamb burger on offer in the major fast food chains, it is not expected to be produced indefinitely. This is because the price of lamb meat has considerably increased over the last few years. Despite this fact, Burger King have been pushing the sales of this burger with adverts featuring the phrase, “1st Time Ever” and its release coincides with the Easter season where lamb is the popular meat to eat.  It is also possible they have added lamb burgers to the menu as many upscale, trendy restaurants have been serving it for a while. With this in mind, aspiring restaurateurs may choose to follow suit when they design their own menu after purchasing their own building, complete with UK restaurant insurance.

The main distinguishing feature of this new burger is not the lamb meat but the flat bread it is enveloped in. The rosemary flatbread alone is 287 calories, combined with the 357 calorie lamb meat, 40 calories of mint yoghurt sauce, and the remaining calories being made up of salad vegetables and chilli ketchup. Surprisingly, McDonald’s Big Mac has fewer calories (490) despite it being loaded with three slices of bread and two beef burgers.

Of all the burgers supplied by Burger King, their hamburger is the lowest calorie burger with just 284. You would need to eat more than two of these in order to match the calories consumed from one lamb flatbread burger. Followed by the Hamburger, is the 325 calorie Cheeseburger, a Bacon Double Cheeseburger with 495, the Veggie burger with 590, the Chicken Royale has 608 and the Whopper has 651 calories.

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Fast Food is the UK’s Choice of Food

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Fried chickenMillions of families across the UK have cut back on spending their money on luxuries, including meals in restaurants, because of the recession and the subsequent squeeze on disposable income. Many people have been encouraged to trade down on eating out to cheaper, fast food meals including fried chicken and burgers.

According to the market research company, NPD, which tracks consumer spending, 5.54 billion visits were made to a fast food restaurant in 2011, out of the 11 billion meals eaten in total out of the home, whether it was a pub, sandwich shop or work canteen.

This means that 50.4% of all meals eaten out of the home are at a supposed ‘quick service’ restaurant, up from 47.3% just two years ago. Quick service restaurants is a phrase used by the food and restaurant industry to describe any outlet where the consumer queues to buy take away food, which does include coffee shops.

Guy Fielding from the NPD, said, “It’s a lot about trading down. Because fast food has become so cheap, it has driven families in particular away from independent restaurants and pubs to the fast food chains.

“Families want to know what they are getting. And with the likes of McDonald’s or KFC they know it is a consistent experience and good value.”

The NPD said that in the last 4 years, both the money spent on dining and the total number of meals eaten out of the home has fallen. The NPD also said that the size of the eating our market has dropped from £50.8billion in the 12 months to September 2008 to £49.2billion in the 12 months to September 2011.

Restaurants are trying to compete with the fast food chains by offering 2 for 1 deals and discounts for diners, but are struggling due to the increased cost of supplies, the price of restaurant insurance quotes, the rising cost of hiring staff and other expensive overheads.

Large supermarkets have also said that shoppers have bought a larger number of premium ready meals, which are an alternative to going out for a meal.

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