As New York City’s foodservice operators have discovered, supplying nutrition information can be challenging.

That’s why some companies are improving the way they convey nutrition information to customers before they legally have to do it. Pittsburgh-based Eat’n Park, which long has supplied nutrition information on its Web site, took much of that information also to the back page of its menus this year.

That led R&I to ask Kevin O’Connell, Eat’n Park’s senior vice president of marketing:

Q: How has Eat’n Park improved the ways it conveys nutritional information to guests?

A: For years we’ve offered full nutritional information. If you were interested in it, it was there. Last May, after getting information from guests that they really appreciated the information on the Web site, we thought, why not bring it into the store? Why make them go to our Web site?

[Having a back page dedicated to nutrition information] has raised the awareness level. Here’s a whole section with a lot of items that offer healthy choices. Some of these items were marked [as being] healthy before; we just didn’t provide them with the nutritional information on the menu. Probably the most popular area has been the gluten-free section.

We have also found that if you market something as healthy, it doesn’t drive people to it. We don’t put [nutritional information] right next to the item. If they’re looking for more details on the healthy items, it’s on the back page. What we wanted to do with nutritional information is provide it for people who want it. Some people really don’t want to know.