Restaurants to display nutritional details of food - for more hospitality stories, see What the weekend papers say

Restaurants to display nutritional details of food
Chip shops, sandwich bars and restaurants will soon have to display nutritional information about the food they serve, including fat, salt, sugar and calorie content. Tim Smith, the new chief executive at the Food Standards Agency, said the initiative would encourage healthy eating and tackle obesity by warning people of the hidden calories in the food they buy. Yo! Sushi is currently the only restaurant chain to give these details, and Smith said it was not good enough for a few outlets to carry such information on websites or leaflets. Details will have to be displayed on menus and behind the counter, or on pre-packed foods such as sandwiches in a “highly visible” way. The British Hospitality Association questioned how information could be displayed or calculated. – 22 June, Read the full article in the Observer >>


Bravura Management clinches deal with Best Western
Scottish hotel management company, Bravara Management, has won a contract to manage some of the UK hotels in the Best Western hotel consortium, which numbers some 4,000 independently-managed hotels across 40 countries. Under the deal, which will be unveiled in London on Tuesday, Bravura will take over the running of some hotels in Scotland in a bid to improve asset values. Stirling-based Bravura was set up last year by managing director Marshall Dallas (whose hotel credentials include stints at Trust House Forte, Holiday Inn and MacDonald Hotels) and currently provides services for Ladyglen Hotels and Samuel Solley Hotels in Scotland.  “We focus on maximising the asset by increasing profit and reducing costs,” said Dallas.  “The rules have changed in the hotel industry. With declining property prices and increased utility bills and food costs, real value will only be driven by treating hotels as operating businesses and not just relying on property uplifts.” – 22 June, Read the full article in the Sunday Times >> 


UK beer sales scrape the barrel
UK beer sales have dropped below the five-billion-litre mark for the first time since 1975, according to figures from the British Beer & Pub Association. Total beer sales fell by 1.7% in the year to 30 April, with volumes slipping below 50m hectolitres. The figures also reveal that pub closures are running at 27 a week, with 1,200 dropping out of the market over the past 12 months.
The sector has been put under pressure by the consumer downturn and smoking ban, along with rising utility and commodity costs and increases in beer duty. The premium lager segment has been hardest hit, with sales down 2%. – 22 June, Read the full article in the Sunday Telegraph >>

TV chefs fuel boom in free-range chicken farms
The campaign against the poor quality of the life and meat of intensively-farmed broiler chickens, launched this January by TV chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, has fuelled a boom in free-range chicken farms in Scotland. Booming consumer demand has prompted supermarket supplier Grampian Country Foods to increase free-range production from 45,000 to 90,000 a week and boost organic output by 5,000 birds a week to 20,000. The 2 Sisters Group is also planning to open six new farms on the East coast of Scotland where chicken numbers will be reduced to meet new welfare standards. Jeremy Blackburn, executive officer at the British Poultry Council, commented: "There was a spike in demand after the programmes and that looks as if it could be sustained. Producers are reacting to that and that is good news for consumers." – 22 June, Read the full article in Scotland on Sunday >>
 

Loch Fyne moves into the City
Loch Fyne restaurants is set to open its first site in the City of London, in Gracechurch Street. The 40-strong fresh fish and seafood chain is hoping to expand further through the conversion of some of the 2,500 pubs owned by Greene King, which bought Loch Fyne for £68m last year from venture capital firm Hutton Collins. Hutton Collins had acquired Loch Fyne in 2005 after a period of over-rapid expansion. – 21 June, Read the full article in the Times >>

Scientists create white wine as healthy as red
Israeli scientists believe they have made white wine that is as healthy as red wine by leaving the grape skins to ferment with the pulp for 18 hours and adding a small amount of pure alcohol. Grape skins, which are left on when making red wine but removed for white, contain antioxidants called polyphenols which lower cholesterol and help prevent cancer. One caveat was identified by Michael Aviram, professor of biochemistry and medicine at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, which carried out the research. “The only downside is that it is sweet like a dessert wine because the added alcohol inhibits the ability of the sugar in the grape to convert to alcohol,' he explained. – 21 June, Read the full article in the Daily Mail >>

By Angela Frewin

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