October 30, 2006
Contact: Sue Hensley 202-331-5964, Chrissy Shott 202-331-5902

Good morning. My name is Chuck Hunt and I am the Executive Vice President of the New York City Chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association.

I am here to discuss efforts that are taking place in New York City’s 24,000 food service establishments to eliminate artificial trans fats, and underscore our desire to work with the city on this issue. I am also here to lay out some of our concerns about the Board of Health's proposed ban on trans fat, as well as the menu labeling proposal. Both are measures we think - while well-intentioned - will unfortunately not achieve the health benefits sought by the Board. I am particularly concerned that the lack of education on this issue among the city's restaurants, coupled with significant fines are a recipe for disaster that could be devastating for New York City’s restaurants, the city’s largest private sector employer of 180,000 people.

I think we can agree that the outcome the Board of Health and the New York State Restaurant Association seeks is the same - to see a move away from trans fat in oils and products consumed in restaurants.

However, the challenges and potential unintended consequences of the proposal to ban trans fat in the timespan of 18 months have not been fully thought out.

Many people may wonder why trans fats are being used in the first place. To briefly explain, several years ago, medical opinion pointed to concerns over saturated fats—like butter and lard—and the need for more healthful alternatives. As a result, many restaurateurs substituted partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and other alternatives containing trans fats in oils, margarines, shortenings, and prepared foods.

Now that science had progressed and the medical community is telling us that trans fat has negative health effects, restaurateurs have been looking for alternatives. But this cannot be accomplished overnight - or even in eighteen months. In fact, the reason all restaurateurs have not switched to trans fat-free options is that there simply aren't enough trans-free products and oils on the market today.

This is truly a farm-to-table issue. It takes time to develop, plant, harvest and process new alternative crops and to test new oils. Because of this supply problem, if an eighteen month timetable were enacted, many of the city's restaurateurs would have no choice but to switch to oils high in unhealthful saturated fats, a move opposed by experts as a backward step for public health. As the Chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee concluded: “consumers should avoid increasing their intake of saturated fat in an effort to minimize trans fat.” A ban would mean exactly that for consumers. Many restaurateurs would be forced to use alternatives like palm oil, which is high in saturated fats.

In addition to serving customers, New York’s restaurants are customers too: we buy from food manufacturers before preparing these products in our kitchens. But many of the foods we depend upon to serve our customers—from French fries to many kinds of pastries and baked goods—contain trans fats. And while great strides are being made to provide more trans-free oils and foods, there simply will not be enough supply available in the next year-and-a-half to supply all of New York City's restaurants.

The Department of Health clearly has not considered the impact to the small businesses of New York City - the small restaurants that are the backbone of many communities within our city. The small and family-owned independent operators who have the fewest resources are those who would be hit the hardest - facing dramatic changes to their menus, their pricing and their business models.

This ban threatens popular dishes and affordable menus—all of which are critical to their economic survival in a business where the typical profit margin is around three cents on every dollar spent by their customers.

And the city's ethnic restaurateurs -who provide such an extraordinary range of dishes from around the world - would be particularly impacted. While it is relatively easy to find trans fat-free substitutes for some foods, many classic New York and ethnic dishes are more difficult to prepare in this way, whether it's cannoli, éclairs, egg rolls or fresh-baked cookies.

Ironically, the outreach and education by the Board of Health has been almost nonexistent. In a city where small businesses and tourism are so critically important, it is my understanding that no economic impact study of this proposed ban has been undertaken by the city.

Far from helping restaurateurs figure out how to move away from trans fats, just one letter and one skimpy brochure said to have been mailed last year—mentioning a voluntary ban which the Department now opposes. And in a survey of my members, only two restaurants in 400 reported that they had been contacted by the Department of Health in any way on this issue.

To my knowledge, nothing has been communicated to New York’s restaurateurs in terms of practical advice from any of the city’s health inspectors when visiting restaurants. Yet, the Department could now impose a hefty fine for restaurateurs found in breach of this ban. I’m here to tell you that a fine is not an educational process. The city needs to get serious about working with, not against, its restaurateurs to achieve this goal that we share in common. I am here today to ask you to sit down with us and start that conversation.

Moving to the menu labeling issue…I would first like to point out the remarkable efforts that have been made by many of the city's restaurants and chain restaurants in the past few years to provide more nutrition information to consumers - on the web, in brochures, posters, tray liners and in other forms.

The concern with the way the Board's proposal is written is that - again, while well-intentioned - it is set up to hurt the exact restaurants which have been going above and beyond to provide nutrition information to customers. In fact, this proposal truly lends credence to the saying that "no good deed goes unpunished." What is the incentive for restaurants to provide nutrition information if the New York Board of Health is going to punish them for providing it this information?

Research shows that more than 70% of restaurant customers customize their orders. And restaurants provide ample opportunities for consumers to personalize their food orders – whether it's pizza, entrées, beverages or desserts. In some cases, such as New Yorkers' beloved coffee shops and delis, there could be hundreds or even thousands of combinations that consumers could choose from in ordering a coffee drink or sandwich. That is precisely the reason many restaurants have chosen brochures or the web to provide nutrition information to consumers.

Adding caloric information to menus and menu boards - with so many combination options - would make many menus extremely cluttered and confusing to customers.

And there are many unanswered questions raised by the way the proposal is written. What does a 'single menu item" mean for a pizza chain which posts caloric content on-line and therefore would need to adhere to the proposal? Does every conceivable combination of toppings on a medium pepperoni pizza need to be listed? Or does there need to be one "median" value listed, which would be meaningless?

Coffee chains serve drinks with different whipped creams, different kinds of milk and other syrups and additives. Take a look at any major coffee chain's website for all of the different possible variations of a cappuccino drink, with a broad range of caloric values. Is that restaurant supposed to list every variation and have a menu boards that is a mile long? Or are they supposed to come up with median values that don't help customers understand very much, and could vary by several hundred calories, depending on the customer's customization?

The proposal states that it seeks to standardize restaurant menus and menu boards, but provides no definition of what "standardization" means for restaurants. If you purchase a packaged product, such as a can of beans, the nutrition information on that product will be the same from can to can. However, a restaurant provides food that is prepared by people. Factors such as available ingredients, substitutions and that the meal is prepared by a human being and not a machine, all support that notion that a "standard" for restaurants sometimes does not exist.

Finally, the proposal does not take into account the cost to restaurants to comply with the proposed regulations on menu and menu board labeling. And the cost could certainly pose a disincentive to providing nutrition information for those operators that do not currently offer nutrition information and are not covered by this proposal. The proposal also imposes real costs for restaurateurs for extensive laboratory testing of each menu item – and each time a new item is added or modified.

Instituting regulations that are not flexible or effective will not achieve the intention of providing consumers with access to information. It will hurt restaurants in New York City.

Let me just say that - with both of these proposals - New York’s restaurants are thriving today but they are not indestructible. What happens to our city’s restaurants impacts the entire economy of our city, and so we have to know the challenges and the costs.

We want to work with the Board to do what is in the best interests of New Yorkers’ health, economy and restaurants. We look forward to the opportunity to establish an ongoing dialogue with the Board of Health, toward a shared goal of providing restaurant customers with information so that they can make positive nutrition and lifestyle choices.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on these proposals.