[Karen925]

Howdy,
I emailed Amy's Ice cream for a request of the nutrition facts for their products in the stores. I have not heard from Amy's. Is there a legal requirement when selling food to the general public, in this case there are several shoppes in a couple of cities, to make available nutrition content?
Thanks,

[Meg]

Unfortunately, there isn't a national requirement for nutritional information to be available in restaurants and places selling prepared foods. Certain cities, most notably New York City, have local ordinances but they only apply to establishments with more than a certain number of locations, in other words, chains as opposed to locally owned restaurants.

Is Amy's ice cream owned by the big Amy's healthy food people? If so, they seem to be pretty health conscious and might be willing to share their nutritional information. If they're just a small, local operation, they probably don't have the nutritional info for their products because of the expense of testing.

If you can't find the nutritional info, your best bet is to look at the nutritional information for similar products and use it. I know it's frustrating but until we get national legislation about food labeling, it's the best we can do.

[Karen925]

Sorry about posting in the wrong forum.

Newbies, what can one do with them:-)?

[Meg]

We our newbies!

[giselley]

I've never had any problem getting nutritional information from companies. It takes a little while to get the return e-mail-- sometimes quite a long time. It depends on the beurocracy involved. It looks like Amy's is a local Austin TX company

[Karen925]

Originally Posted by giselley

I've never had any problem getting nutritional information from companies. It takes a little while to get the return e-mail-- sometimes quite a long time. It depends on the beurocracy involved. It looks like Amy's is a local Austin TX company

Yes it is a local company and one of the reasons I like them. I hope you are right in that I will hear from them.

Maybe I will send out an email weekly. Persistance on my part. Otherwise I might be tempted to reward those companies with my business that do supply this type of information.

[Meg]

Voting with our dollars is the only thing that will catch most business's attention!

[Karen925]

Originally Posted by Meg

Voting with our dollars is the only thing that will catch most business's attention!

I heard from Amy's and she said her company does not have this info but her ice cream was similar to Hagen Dazs. Now I want to support local businesses but I also want to reward Hagen Dazs.

Why do some companies furnish this info and others don't?

[Meg]

I've always heard that small businesses can't afford the expense of having foods analyzed in a lab, which is why they're generally exempted in places that do have nutritional fact requirements, like NYC. I don't know how much it would cost to run a menu through that kind of analysis, but from having friends who own small businesses, I know that every penny counts in this economy. Big chains with many outlets could afford it, on the other hand.

I think it was great of them to email you back and tell you it would be similar to Haagen Dazs. Now you have a ballpark idea of the calories.

[Karen925]

Originally Posted by Meg

I think it was great of them to email you back and tell you it would be similar to Haagen Dazs. Now you have a ballpark idea of the calories.

Good point. The ladel of hot chocolate fudge and gooey carmel pecan topping, that is another matter that I get on top of the Mexican Vanilla. It comes down to, is this worth the cost?

[ennay]

Originally Posted by Karen925

I heard from Amy's and she said her company does not have this info but her ice cream was similar to Hagen Dazs. Now I want to support local businesses but I also want to reward Hagen Dazs.

Why do some companies furnish this info and others don't?

This is a very very responsive small company to tell you that. THIS is behavior that should be rewarded

You dont reward Haagen Dazs (who reveals because they are legally required to, not because they want to) because she was generous enough to reveal enough of her recipe knowledge to know that she was on the butterfat range of HD.

It is extremely expensive to generate legal calorie and nutrition info. Annoyingly the law will not allow someone like Amy to simply plug her ingredients into Fitday and provide that information even with the disclaimer that the nutrition information is only an estimate. They actually have to go through quite a bit of hoops. And they arent any more accurate when they do that.

Her decision that as a small company she can not afford to do it (but giving you what she can) is not anywhere on par with a large company like Red Robin who for many years refused to give nutrition information even when requested because they simply did not want you to know. (dont know if this has changed now that they have restaurants in full disclosure states)

[Karen925]

Howdy,
Is it annual revenue earned by the company that will trigger disclosure? So very true about putting ingredients into recipe anaylzer with disclaimer. I had never thought of that! I might even suggest that to Amy.

Now to estimate the ladels of pecan caramel topping and fudge sauce.

[ennay]

look up store bought fudge sauce and caramel topping. At my grocery there is usually an icecream topping section at the end of the freezer aisle. Can you guess the size of the ladles?

I dont think it is just revenue, it is usually either # employees or # locations, and then still only if you are in a full disclosure state or county of which there are few.