Spirit ahead of the game on kids' meals
Spirit Group has launched a new children's menu at its Wacky Warehouse pubs, offering a much wider choice of healther options.
With a number of pub operators having been criticised for the nutritional standards of childrens menus in a report by the Soil Association last month, the managed arm of Punch believes it is ahead of the game on tacking concerns about kids' food.
Spirit has reduced the fat and salt content of all main courses, provided gluten free meals and flagged up a nutritional table on the menu to give greater guidance. In addition, all the 'build your own' healthy food sections have no artificial colours, flavours or sweeteners.
Youngsters treated to a meal out at these family-friendly pubs will find a choice of dishes. As well as the undoubtedly popular chicken nuggets and burgers, there are pasta dishes, cottage pie and curries, with fajitas stuffed with healthy vegetables proving a fun-make-it yourself option.
Paul Farr, head of food at Spirit Group, said: "Whether the menu is a value mainstream or premium dining one, our products are always the highest possible quality and that goes for our children's food offer too. We provide our younger customers with a choice; they are not restricted to a limited and unimaginative menu.
"To ensure we have the right balance we have tested our menus on experts - seeking the views of a children's consumer panel. We asked for their opinions, which gave us some strong views to build our menu around.
"Healthy diets for children start in the home, so eating out at a pub has to be put in context, it is a treat; it is not where they have meals every day. Having said that, we do take our responsibilities to healthy eating seriously. It is why we have put renewed efforts into improving our menus from a nutritional point of view.
"We attended a meeting with the FSA to understand the current voluntary traffic light system being introduced into the retail market. The system was reviewed for Spirit kids, but as there are no current traffic light children's targets in place we opted for the introduction of GDA guidelines onto our nutritional table, which we hope will serve as a useful guide to parents.
"All our main dishes were reviewed for fat, saturated fats, sugar and salt with a notable reduction gained. These dishes were then tasted by our consumer panel with fantastic feedback from the children and parents alike."
Brands operated by Mitchells & Butlers, Whitbread and Greene King were among the family restaurants criticised in the Soil Association report. Spirit was not included - but whether this is because its meals were not surveyed or were not featured in the final tally because they didn't fit the message the report wanted to send, remains unclear.
