Ireland's 22,000 food service businesses are being urged to use MenuCal, an online tool which helps to identify allergens and calculate calories for menus.

The tool, which is free to use, was developed by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). Its research suggests that as many as 95% of consumers would like to see calorie labeling on menus in some or all food outlets.

MenuCal was developed in response to concerns from the food industry, with many businesses unsure about how to accurately calculate calories for display on menus. Some businesses were also concerned about the potential costs involved in this.

MenuCal was developed for this reason, but was then enhanced to help businesses comply with legal requirements to display allergen information on food.

"With the legal requirement for all food businesses to display allergens and with the Government's proposal in the obesity policy and action plan to have calorie posting legislation coming down the track, MenuCal is an important tool for every food service kitchen to use. It is a free, online resource which allows food businesses to upload, modify and securely store their recipes," commented FSAI chief executive, Dr Pamela Byrne.

The FSAI has now launched a new initiative to encourage food businesses nationwide to use MenuCal. It will target businesses, owners and chefs via a digital media campaign.

Speaking at the launch of the initiative, chef and author, Catherine Fulvio, said that she finds the tool ‘invaluable'.

"It's so easy and quick to input ingredients and save recipes. It removes the need to keep excel spreadsheets that you need to manually input or amend ingredients. Once the ingredients are in, it's very easy to modify your recipes. If, for example you have a signature sauce that you use in three dishes, and you want to make a change to the ingredients list for the sauce, that change is automatically made to all the three dishes," she explained.

Also speaking at the launch, Dr Mary Flynn, the FSAI's chief specialist in public health nutrition, noted that a quarter of all calories consumed on a daily basis involve meals and snacks that are eaten out.

"This is a growing trend especially among the young. Calorie menu labelling allows people to make informed choices about the food they buy. The demand for calorie information is here to stay.

"Furthermore, three in every 100 people in Ireland have a food allergy and have to be very careful when eating out to avoid becoming ill. Some allergic reactions can be fatal. Accurate allergen information is vital to protect these vulnerable consumers. Identifying allergens in food is challenging, but keeping this information up-to-date is almost impossible without an online system like MenuCal," she said.

MenuCal is considered the first tool of its kind in Europe and the software has already been sold to the Food Standards Agency of Northern Ireland and Food Standards Scotland.

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