Online food delivery menus missing key nutritional information: Study

As more and more young people increasingly use apps to make food purchases, a new study warned on Sunday that most advertised items are missing nutritional information in online food delivery menus that would otherwise help consumers make healthy choices.

Researchers from the University of Sydney investigated menu items on major online food delivery outlets and apps.

They found that less than 6 per cent of menus of food outlets on online food delivery apps like UberEats, Menulog and Deliveroo had complete nutritional labelling.

A total of 482 menus from UberEats, Menulog and Deliveroo were reviewed by the researchers in the study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

“There are multiple studies that show menu labelling having real-world impact that consumers who were provided with nutritional information selected meals with significantly lower energy content,” said lead study author Sisi Jia.

“Although there is increasing demand for food delivery services, it is unknown how well menu labelling is implemented by online platforms,” added Jia from the Charles Perkins Centre and Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney.

The use of online food delivery services has grown rapidly, including during the pandemic.

Online food delivery is also making it easier for people to buy food of low nutritional quality, according to the researchers.