The Lean Act Menu Labeling Law

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Knowledge Guide

Menu Labeling Law Passed With Health Care Bill

The movement to accurately label menu items started in 2008, when the state of California, the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and two counties in Washington and Oregon passed legislation requiring restaurants to provide nutrition information to their customers.

Studies have shown that 75% of consumers favor mandatory menu labeling in food service establishments. Consumers are already familiar with nutrition labeling since it became standard on food products, and most want the same information when they dine out.

Critics cite the cost of analyzing menu items for their nutritional content as being prohibitively expensive for most small and mid-size food service businesses. They also say menu variety will disappear because once a recipe is analyzed for its content, it cannot be changed even slightly since this will alter nutrition information.

The National Restaurant Association (NRA) supports menu labeling legislation, and lobbied hard for a national bill that will preempt the growing patchwork of local and state laws regulating menu labeling and set a single national standard for menu labeling.

The Labeling Education and Nutrition (LEAN) Act was introduced in 2008 and sets a national standard for restaurant menu labeling. It is supported by the NRA and the Coalition for Responsible Nutrition Information (CRNI), an NRA-led advocacy group.

LEAN passed as part of the health care reform bill in March 2010. The law requires restaurants with 20 or more locations to provide nutritional information on their menus.