Domino's Pizza CEO Balks at FDA Calorie-Posting Regulations

August 16, 2011

The Food and Drug Administration has mandated that all restaurants with at least 20 locations include calorie information on their menus, a regulation that Domino's Pizza CEO J. Patrick Doyle isn't going to follow without a fight. "It is absurd to impose rules that will increase costs to business in a manner that will never be seen by 90 percent of our customers, and will be so confusing as to be ignored by the very few who ever see it," Doyle wrote in an op-ed for TheHill.com.

Doyle's argument isn't against the regulation itself -- he notes that Domino's Pizza "strongly supports the spirit" of the FDA's mandate -- but rather the finer points. For example, the FDA ruling would require Domino's Pizza to post calorie information for a whole pizza, but most customers would prefer to see a per-slice breakdown. And the very nature of pizza, with all its variability in toppings, makes it difficult for franchise owners to provide specific calorie counts for the innumerable combinations of pizza toppings.

Check out J. Patrick Doyle's entire op-ed piece here. Do you agree with his points?

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Comments

Ashley's picture

Over the last year or so BurgerVille has started providing nutritional info for EXACTLY what you order with what ever variation you put on it included along with ways to reduce it and make your order a little better. Maybe he should give them a call, if they can individualized all those orders person to person and give you it right on your receipt why cant Dominos?

Melissa from Domino's Pizza's picture

Ashely - we have seen Burgerville's receipts and think that type of nutrition disclosure is great. It gives the customer nutrition facts for their exact order and tells them ways to make it even healthier. Domino's Cal-O-Meter gives customers precise information for their order, too. You can build a pizza online and Cal-O-Meter will generate the nutrition facts for a slice of that pizza. Unfortunately, Burgerville's receipt solution and Domino's Cal-O-Meter will not comply with the FDA's proposed menu labeling rules. As savvy and customized as those tools are, the FDA is saying that calorie information still has to appear on Bugerville and Domino' menu boards. And stores would have to account for every potential "build" of each item on the menu board, so stores will be required to list wide calorie ranges to encompass each potential combination (i.e. 1,620 – 3,230 for a whole large cheese pizza). We think the 21st century solutions companies already have in place give their customers much more helpful, accurate nutrition information than that!

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