With trans fat being such a huge consumer concern in the last decade, and continuing to grow, the prepackaged food industry began making voluntary moves to remove or reduce the amount of trans fats in their products. Granted this voluntary move really picked up steam once the Government mandated that trans fats needed to be documented on nutritional labeling, but the fact still remains that great effort has made by the prepackaged industry to get on board the trans fat bandwagon.
The focus of trans fat has now shifted to the food service industry, where it is estimated by some source that up to 38% of our fat intake comes from. The use of partially hydrogenated frying oil and ingredients containing trans fat are both large contributors to the fat content of a menu item. Since the food service industry does not have to offer nutritional labeling and the availability of that information is limited, it is often difficult for patrons to make informed choices regarding the consumption of trans fat while eating out.
In response to this growing concern several U.S. cities have begun the move toward mandating the removal of trans fats in restaurants. The approach so far as been to do this in stages, normally starting off with guidelines stating that all shortening, margarine and oils that are used in cooking contain less than half a milligram of trans fat per serving. Once the first stage is in place the second phase normally involves expanding the half a milligram requirement to other items including baked goods.
This push towards the removal of trans fats is having a pull marketing direction on the distributors as demand for trans fat free cooking oils and ingredients sky rockets. There is also a push marketing effort taking place as the restaurants who have taken the effort to reduce or remove trans fats from their menus are increasing the amount of materials available to their patrons explaining the benefits of being a trans fat free establishment.