These recommendations have strong public support after a recent survey revealed 68% of people were in favour of mandatory calorie labelling and 81% of people agreed the public sector should lead the way in improving food out of home.
Also Food Standards Scotland wants to improve the range of healthy food and drink choices available on children’s menus.
Nearly 30% of adults and 13% of children in Scotland are considered obese. The Scottish Government will attempt to reduce childhood obesity by 50% by 2030.
Ross Finnie, chair of Food Standards Scotland, said: “Almost everybody - 98% of us - in Scotland eats out, and around 25% of all our calories now comes from the food we eat out of home. In the absence of calorie information, our most popular choices are those, which are less healthy items of confectionery, cakes, biscuits, pastries, chips, crisps and sugary drinks.
“With two out of three people either overweight or obese in Scotland and a sharp increase in the volume of takeaways being ordered, action is needed to transform the current food environment for our health.”
However, UKHospitality has warned that the introduction of mandatory calorie labelling would place a ‘significant burden’ on Scottish hospitality businesses.
Willie Macleod, UKHospitality executive director for Scotland, added: “Introducing mandatory labelling is potentially a retrograde step that would cause significant problems for some businesses, particularly SMEs. Smaller businesses would likely struggle to cope with an inflexible one-size-fits-all approach.
“A blanket introduction of mandatory labelling would represent a considerable additional cost for businesses already facing tightening margins at a time of unprecedented political uncertainty.
“The end result is likely that prices would go up and investment would go down with much less choice for customers.”