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AbstractFood consumption represents a substantial share of tourism’s global CO2 emissions. Yet, experimental research on reducing high-emission food choices among tourists is scarce. This study explores how cognitive and behavioural interventions affect the likelihood of choosing vegetarian dishes in hotel restaurants. The authors conducted covert field experiments using theory-informed menu designs to encourage vegetarian food choices. In two hotels, 647 participants received one of four menu conditions: the hotel’s default menu or one of three intervention menus. The intervention menus were designed to test cognitive (using the bandwagon effect) or behavioural interventions (using framing and anchoring biases). The results show that the behavioural interventions outperformed the cognitive intervention in increasing vegetarian orders. When presented with the behavioural intervention, participants had up to 654% (95% CI [2.21, 49.80]) higher odds of choosing vegetarian dishes than the cognitive intervention group. The odds increased to 950% (95% CI [1.26, 27.35]) when the participants were presented with a framing and anchoring-based behavioural intervention. The results indicate that behavioural interventions are more effective in encouraging pro-environmental food choices in hotel settings than cognitive interventions. This study contributes to the literature on pro-environmental behaviour change, presenting suggestions for further studies and practical, theoretical, and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Encouraging restaurant guests to order vegetarian dishes plays a key role in creating a more environmentally sustainable tourism sector. However, for many consumers eating a meat dish is an important aspect of their enjoyment-focused restaurant experience. Identifying new approaches that support restaurants in selling more vegetarian dishes are urgently needed. Drawing from hedonic psychology and affective forecasting theory, this study tests two interventions aimed at directing ordering towards specific vegetarian dishes in a scenario-based survey experiment with 742 consumers. Results show the potential of affective forecasting as a promising psychological mechanism. Displaying an appetising picture of a vegetarian dish on a menu increases stated ordering of the dish because the picture directs consumer attention to the dish and triggers them to imagine eating the dish. Consumers who imagine eating the dish feel stronger anticipated enjoyment of eating it. Adding to the picture an invitation to imagine eating the dish does not further increase the effect. This study explains the psychological mechanism of how a picture of an appetising vegetarian dish changes food choices and provides restaurants with a cost-effective measure to direct ordering towards more environmentally sustainable dishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on the understanding of restaurants as food tourism attractions that contribute to the protection and promotion of terroir. This is specifically relevant in relation to Michelin-starred restaurants which are recognized as must-go places worldwide. Menu design is one of the elements that inform the relationships between locality and luxury in restaurants through food. Drawing on a qualitative study based on interviews with ten chefs of Michelin-starred restaurants in the region of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), the article analyses the role of local food in the design of menus in luxury gastronomy. Results show that while food with a local origin is crucial in menu design, chefs acknowledged the difficulty of building seasonal and sustainable supply chains and the impact of global influences on the restaurant experiences. Also, the article discusses the relationships between producers and chefs in terms of economic and environmental situations that inform the territorial connection between production and consumption. The implications for food tourism management and marketing are also explained.

Crowdfunding has reached enormous popularity among entrepreneurs, yet many struggle to fund their projects. For example, only 39.8% of all Kickstarter projects get funded. Why? Entrepreneurs need to set a predefined funding goal, which needs to be reached to get the project funded. If not reached, they do not get the money. To reach the funding goal, entrepreneurs can design reward menus from which backers can choose low-priced to high-priced rewards to support a given project. We show that simply inserting a so-called decoy option—an option in the first place that does not make sense but makes higher-priced options more attractive—can lead to significantly more backers choosing a high-priced option (up to 28% more high-priced choices). This makes it more likely for entrepreneurs to reach their predefined funding goals and thus start their designated projects. At the core of reward-based crowdfunding (RBC) is the reward menu. Carefully constructed reward menus can impact fundraising success significantly. For example, an oft-discussed approach to influencing purchasing decisions is introducing an irrelevant option into a consumer's choice set—a decoy option—making another, often more valuable, option more attractive. This phenomenon is also known as the attraction effect. Prior research, however, has found mixed evidence for its occurrence in applied settings because it has largely employed simplified attribute presentation—with only numeric attributes such as ratings—and hypothetical choices, which had no economic consequences. Hence, researchers questioned the practical significance of the attraction effect. In this paper, we examine whether the attraction effect will manifest in an applied setting such as the crowdfunding context, where product attributes are both numerical (e.g., price) and nonnumerical (e.g., content of a product), choices have economic consequences, and organizations offer several menu options to consumers. We draw upon the salience theory and propose four hypotheses, suggesting that introducing an irrelevant decoy option in choice sets, created digitally in reward menus, may lead backers to choose higher-priced options. We conducted seven online experiments and a field study on Kickstarter (in total, n = 3,998 participants), with increasing levels of similarity with RBC. We found that the attraction effect significantly shifted backers' preferences from a low-priced to a high-priced reward by 18.8% to 28.2% in different settings, highlighting the substantial potential of properly designed digital reward menus to influence funders' choices. Given that researchers have expressed skepticism about the attraction effect in applied settings, our results are particularly significant, suggesting that information systems design can influence choice behavior. This research makes targeted contributions to the literature on crowdfunding, the attraction effect, and digital design. History: Alessandro Acquisti, Senior Editor; David (Jingjun) Xu, Associate Editor. Funding: This work was supported by University of Cologne, Erasmus University, and University of Liechtenstein. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1152. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundControlled-feeding trials are challenging to design and administer in a free-living setting. There is a need to share methods and best practices for diet design, delivery, and standard adherence metrics.ObjectivesThis report describes menu planning, implementing, and monitoring of controlled diets for an 8-wk free-living trial comparing a diet pattern based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and a more typical American diet (TAD) pattern based on NHANES 2009-2010. The objectives were to 1) provide meals that were acceptable, portable, and simple to assemble at home; 2) blind the intervention diets to the greatest extent possible; and 3) use tools measuring adherence to determine the success of the planned and implemented menu.MethodsMenus were blinded by placing similar dishes on the 2 intervention diets but changing recipes. Adherence was monitored using daily food checklists, a real-time dashboard of scores from daily checklists, weigh-backs of containers returned, and 24-h urinary nitrogen recoveries. Proximate analyses of diet composites were used to compare the macronutrient composition of the composite and planned menu.ResultsMeeting nutrient intake recommendations while scaling menus for individual energy intake amounts and food portions was most challenging for vitamins D and E, the sodium-to-potassium ratio, dietary fiber, and fatty acid composition. Dietary adherence for provided foods was >95%, with no differences between groups. Urinary nitrogen recoveries were ∼80% relative to nitrogen intake and not different between groups. Composite proximate analysis matched the plan for dietary fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Dietary fiber was ∼2.5 g higher in the TAD composite compared with the planned menu, but ∼7.4 g lower than the DGA composite.ConclusionsBoth DGA and TAD diets were acceptable to most participants. This conclusion was supported by self-reported consumption, quantitative weigh-backs of provided food, and urinary nitrogen recovery. Dietary adherence measures in controlled-feeding trials would benefit from standard protocols to promote uniformity across studies. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02298725.

In recent times, third wave coffee shops that have become part of daily life are being researched with their various dimensions. The aim of this research is to determine the impact of menu content, staff information and physical features in the formation of satisfaction and revisit intentions among customers of third wave coffee shops. The survey form prepared for this purpose was distributed to 448 participants in Eskişehir province between September 2022 and February 2023. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were used in the analysis of the obtained data. According to the analysis results of the research, all hypotheses created within the scope of the research were supported. In this context, it was determined that menu characteristics, staff knowledge, and the physical features of the establishment influence customer satisfaction, and satisfaction affects revisit intentions. Based on the findings of the research, a menu example that is thought to guide sector representatives has been created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies two fundamental questions regarding probabilistic selling in vertically differentiated markets: When is it profitable and how does one design it optimally? For the first question, we identify an important but overlooked economic mechanism driving probabilistic selling in vertically differentiated markets: the convexity of consumer preferences. In stark contrast to the literature finding that probabilistic selling is never profitable except in the presence of certain capacity constraint or consumer bounded rationality, we find that with many alternative utility functions capable of representing convex preference, probabilistic selling is always profitable. For the second question, we study the optimal strategy of probabilistic selling, including the design and price of the probabilistic good and the prices of the component goods. We show that under some technical conditions, the optimal price of the high‐quality component good increases while the optimal price of the low‐quality component good decreases upon the introduction of probabilistic selling, thereby increasing the market coverage and the economic efficiency without launching an actual new product line. To further illustrate the design of probabilistic selling, we use an example based on the canonical utility function, which is widely used in the economics literature on vertical product differentiation. We derive a closed‐form solution to the problem of optimal probabilistic selling. We also take advantage of the analytical tractability of the canonical utility to further explore the design of multiple probabilistic goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily food choices do not only affect our health but also the environment in important ways. Food choice architecture can help to nudge people towards more healthy and sustainable food options. The current research explores the influence of menu design strategies on food choices and satisfaction in a hypothetical hospital setting. Specifically, we systematically tested the effect of vegetarian option availability, menu category framing, and health recommendation inclusion on hypothetical food choice and satisfaction, conducting two large online studies representative of the German adult population that consumes meat at least once a week (Study 1: N = 991; Study 2: N = 989). Both studies were based on a menu from a German university hospital. Results revealed that increasing the availability of vegetarian options increased vegetarian food choices. Neutral menu descriptions had no impact, whereas health recommendations that were presented in form of a visual appeal slightly increased vegetarian dish choices. Importantly, the research also considered menu satisfaction, revealing no main effects of availability, framing and health recommendation. Only when a health recommendation was added to a menu with high availability of vegetarian options, satisfaction was decreased. The findings suggest that menu design elements could modestly influence food choices and satisfaction among meat-eaters in healthcare settings, warranting further investigation with hospital patients. • Menu design strategies increase vegetarian food choice in a hypothetical hospital setting. • Increasing the availability of vegetarian options in a hospital menu increases vegetarian food choices. • Hospital menus with neutral menu descriptions do not impact vegetarian food choice or menu satisfaction. • Health recommendations slightly increase vegetarian food choices. • Adding health recommendations to menus with a high availability of vegetarian options tends to decrease menu satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first impression that diners receive from a food and beverage establishment is via its menu, which conveys more information than just price and food offerings. Despite evidence that suggests possible gaze patterns across restaurant menus, it remains largely unknown how different consumers process this information across different types of menus. Hence, the present study aims to examine consumer visual patterns across traditional Chinese menus compared with regular menus in relation to their price-consciousness, using eye-tracking methodology. Contrary to previous studies that suggest general patterns of scanpaths in reading menus, the findings of the current study note that "price-conscious" consumers exhibit different gaze patterns. Additionally, the menu layout appears to play a role in consumer processing of menu-related data as well. Thus, it is important that restauranteurs define their target consumers and design their menus accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study proposed a model of the influence of menu attributes on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction studies in restaurants have not emphasized menu attributes, despite menus being critically important restaurant products. To date no study has investigated the relationship between menu attributes and customer satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis of the data indicated that menu design, menu item descriptions, and menu variety were significant predictors of customer satisfaction. The study's findings will be beneficial for educators, students in hotel management programs and practitioners to better understand the complex association between menu attributes and customer satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the primary factors associated with online restaurant menu design, including trust, familiarity and recognizable patterns, branding consistency, psychological triggers, and utility (or ease of use). In order to assess the causal link between online menu design and consumer behavior, conjoint value analysis was employed. Sample menus were modeled such that the attributes of the five factors represent the independent variables with the responses indicating consumers’ preferences serving as the dependent variable. The study’s findings suggest that trust is paramount, followed by familiarity and recognizable patterns. Surprisingly, our analysis indicates that utility was the least important factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the strategic equivalence between the delegated menu contracting procedure and the centralized mechanism contracting procedure in general pure strategy multi-agency games under ex post equilibrium. We allow information externalities, contract externality, correlated types, and primitive constraints across the contracts for different agents. Our delegation principle identifies that even under this general setting ex post menu design is strate-gically equivalent to bilateral ex post mechanism design, which simplifies col-lective ex post mechanism design by ignoring relative information reference. Moreover, one can restrict attention to product menu design problems out of general menu design problems if the contract constraint sets have product struc-tures. We provide conditions for when the principal can do strictly better by using the collective mechanism. Our results still hold if we include individual rationality or any degenerated form of our general model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of emerging markets, restaurant food choice needs to be better architected in order to minimise the negative societal and environmental implications. For effective consumer choice architecture, the determinants of restaurant food choice need to be first established. This study explores the determinants of restaurant food choice in Poland, a transitional economy in East-Central Europe with a rapidly growing pattern of out-of-home food consumption. It finds that the low level of public environmental awareness in Poland translates into low consumer recognition of the environmental implications of restaurant food choice. Although customer preference for locally produced and organic food is recorded, this preference is not associated with public environmental awareness, but attributed to possible media effect. In contrast, the level of public awareness of the health repercussions of restaurant food choice is higher in Poland, especially among younger consumers, which is reflected in the desire to see the nutritional and calorific values of food to be displayed on restaurant menus. Implications for policy-making and hospitality management are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at identifying the existence of menu design techniques in actual menu cards, and to question whether use of those techniques is intentional. In total, 86 menu cards were collected from restaurants located in Alanya which is a tourist resort in Antalya, Turkey. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. First, content analysis was utilized to categorize the qualitative data, and second logistic regression was conducted to test the prescribed relations between menu variety and existence of techniques. Findings from qualitative analysis revealed that restaurant operators rarely use menu design techniques intentionally for boosting sales of high-price menu items. Subsequently, the quantitative analysis showed that existence of a technique on the menu card is not predicted by menu variety. This finding confirms the view that use of menu design techniques was unintentional. Theoretical and practical implications of findings were also discussed along with the limitations of current study and recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the research was to develop a methodology to design dégustation menus, which was applied in four Mexican restaurants during 2017. This methodology has five steps and specific tasks for developing the actions that must be executed. The methods and techniques employed were: bibliographic review, Kendall's concordance; besides the calculation of indexes and indicators and multivariate analysis. The statistical analysis based on the Man-Whitney U Test, was allowed to determine the effectiveness of the methodology application with regards to the customers' satisfaction in the selected restaurants. It was proven that the proposed methodology allows to develop dégustation menus in Mexican restaurants, in order to increase the customers' satisfaction with regards to the received service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological effects can be greatly influential for the foodservice industry, especially in menu design. Presenting dish pictures is a common practice on menus, but because of the psychological contagion effect, this practice could decrease consumers’ evaluations of dishes, sometimes without the awareness of consumers, let alone restaurant managers. This research aims to explore the potential threats of a psychological contagion by considering how dishes that make consumers feel uncomfortable can affect their evaluations of dishes located nearby. It further examines how a psychological contagion can be attenuated when a visual boundary is placed between a discomfiting dish and a target dish. The results demonstrate the occurrence of psychological contagion in menu design. The interaction between psychological contagions and visual boundaries suggest that the psychological contagion can be attenuated through visual boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Higher fixation was linked to dish choice with basic and sensory menus. • The fixation-dish choice relationship was not found in the nutritional menu. • Liking and choice were not affected by the type of menu. Digitalization is considered the industrial revolution of the 21st century, helping companies to become more efficient and value-driven. This trend also reaches the restaurant sector, being present in all its spaces and activities, from the kitchen to customer service. The present study aimed to determine if the eye-tracker is a suitable tool to predict diners' choices in the context of a restaurant. Three menu presentations were designed for the study: a basic menu with the name of the dishes and the prices; a menu that included the same information of the basic one, and a descriptive information of each dish; and a menu with an infographic of nutrition-related composition. A total of 180 consumers participated in the study (n ≈ 60 per menu), who evaluated one of the menus presented on a tablet with an integrated eye-tracker. Then, consumers completed a questionnaire indicating their dish choice and their opinion about the menu. Results showed that, when basic or descriptive information was displayed, the eye-tracking could be used to predict consumer's decisions in the restaurant. A higher fixation duration resulted in a higher probability of choice when consumers looked at the basic menu and at the one with descriptive information, but the inclusion of an infographic with nutritional data diminished the prediction ability of the eye-tracker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It will not be easy for smartphone users to get accustomed to one-hand operation using smartphones with larger screens. Coupled with the massive data on the handset screen, the menu design has become extremely important. This study is to apply the pie menu into the smartphones which is used in previous PC user interface. Specifically, how efficient are the users when using pie menu on 5″ handsets? The experiment is divided into two phases. In Phase 1, behavioural analysis, 36 participants used their right hand to operate the Left-Side-Linear Menu (LSLM), Right-Side-Linear Menu (RSLM), and Half-Pie Menu (HPM) while walking. After the experiment we asked them to fill in the NASA-TLX (NASA Task Load Index Standard Workload Test). In Phase 2, eight participants with different thumb lengths and diverse operating experience were invited to operate three menu techniques while standing. Results showed that participants with shorter thumbs are more efficient in operating the three menu techniques than participants with longer thumbs. The reason for this difference is related to how the users grip their phones. In addition, LSLM has the highest error rate and RSLM has the lowest among the three types. The efficiency of HPM depends on continuous learning for five minutes and the result closely matches RSLM. However, there was no significant difference between the HPM and the LSLM in walking speed. In addition, 137 participants took the improved version of the test and made ‘Good’ comments in the System Usability Scale. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The sector of food service provision generates substantial environmental and societal impacts. Environmental impacts are particularly pronounced in terms of carbon footprint build-up while societal impacts are reflected in often unhealthy food choice. These impacts should be minimised to facilitate progress of the sector towards sustainability. A significant share of the negative impacts from food service provision is attributed to irresponsible consumer choice which needs to be architected and made more society- and climate-benign. Customer ‘nudging’ is an effective tool of consumer choice architecture and yet little research has examined its application within the context of private food service provision. This study set to better understand the determinants of consumer choice when dining out and how consumer choice could be reinforced to make it more beneficial from the sustainability viewpoint. To this end, the study reported on the outcome of a consumer survey conducted among visitors to a UK casual dining restaurant where menu design was employed as a customer ‘nudging’ tool. The survey demonstrated that, next to price, food provenance and nutritional value determined consumer choice when dining out. This information should therefore be displayed on restaurant menus to enable educated, and more environment- and society-benign, food choice. While presenting the food carbon values on a menu was well perceived, some skepticism attached to their prospective use as a determinant of consumer choice was recorded. Recommendations were made on the design of the industry and policy-making interventions required to enhance the public appeal of this menu item. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restaurant sector imposes substantial impacts on the environment and society. A large share of the sector's negative impacts is attributed to irresponsible consumer choice. To enhance sustainability of food service provision, consumer choice ought to be architected to make it more responsible. Restaurant menu can be (re-)designed to inform customers about the environmental and societal implications of their choice and thus ‘nudge’ selection of more benign food options. This study explores managerial opinions on the role of menu design in shaping more responsible consumer choice. It finds that while restaurateurs acknowledge rising customer awareness about the ramifications of their food choice on personal health and the environment, they are sceptical about the use of menu design as a means to positively affect consumer choice. The lack of internal resources to implement and maintain the required menu changes, inconstant customer demand, organisational and operational complexities represent the key barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complexity is generally perceived to be a desirable attribute as far as the design/delivery of food and beverage experiences is concerned. However, that said, there are many different kinds of complexity, or at least people use the term when talking about quite different things, and not all of them are relevant to the design of food and drink experiences nor are they all necessarily perceptible within the tasting experience (either in the moment or over time). Consequently, the consumer often needs to infer the complexity of a tasting experience that is unlikely to be perceptible (in its entirety) in the moment. This paper outlines a number of different routes by which the chef, mixologist, and/or blender can both design and signal the complexity in the tasting experience.

Presenting pictures along with food names on menus is a common practice in the restaurant industry. However, it is not clear whether adding pictures to menus always leads to positive effects. In addition, since more restaurant practitioners are creating ambiguous names for their dishes, it is valuable to study how pictures with different types of food names impact customers’ attitudes and behavioral outcomes. In the current study, we examine the joint effect of pictures, food names, and individuals’ information processing styles on consumers’ attitudes, willingness to pay, and purchase intentions. The results reveal that for common descriptive food names, adding pictures have a positive effect on consumers’ attitudes toward the menu item, their willingness to pay and their purchase intentions. More interestingly, for ambiguous food names, pictures have a positive effect only among verbalizers. Visualizers exhibit less favorable attitudes and behavioral outcomes after viewing ambiguously-named dishes with pictures than those without pictures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study will be the first attempt to examine menu attributes, i.e. menu item descriptions, menu design and menu variety as effective marketing tools for Sharm El-Sheikh resort hotels (SESRHs) in Egypt. Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Food and Beverage (F&B) Managers and Executive Chefs (ECs). The findings indicate that the sampled RHs replied primarily on restaurants’ service employees to promote their menu items. However, service employees can become disinterested with repeating verbally menu items for every customer. This study suggests a theoretical model of using menu attributes as marketing tools for SESRHs. The present study provides a basis for future research in relation to menu attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Interventions that enhance linkages between healthy diets and local agriculture can promote sustainable food systems. Home-grown school feeding programs present a promising entry point for such interventions, through the delivery of nutritious menus and meals.Objective: To describe the adaptation of the School Meals Planner Package to the programmatic and environmental reality in Ghana during the 2014 to 2015 school year.Methods: Guided by a conceptual framework highlighting key considerations and trade-offs in menu design, an open-source software was developed that could be easily understood by program implementers. Readily available containers from markets were calibrated into "handy measures" to support the provision of adequate quantities of food indicated by menus. Schools and communities were sensitized to the benefits of locally sourced, nutrient-rich diets. A behavior change communication campaign including posters and songs promoting healthy diets was designed and disseminated in schools and communities.Results: The School Meals Planner Package was introduced in 42 districts in Ghana, reaching more than 320 000 children. Monitoring reports and feedback on its use were positive, demonstrating how the tool can be used by planners and implementers alike to deliver nutritious, locally-sourced meals to schoolchildren. The value of the tool has been recognized at the highest levels by Ghana's government who have adopted it as official policy.Conclusions: The School Meals Planner Package supported the design of nutritious, locally sourced menus for the school feeding program in Ghana. The tool can be similarly adapted for other countries to meet context-specific needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current high obesity rates in developed countries have many negative consequences both at individual and societal levels. Drawing upon streams of research from diverse disciplines, this conceptual article offers a number of strategies for nudging consumers toward healthier menu selections once they are in a restaurant servicescape. A series of theory-based recommendations are outlined pertaining to the use of atmospheric cues to induce healthy choices. Further, a series of theoretically anchored menu design strategies are also presented. This conceptual research advances our existing knowledge by cross-pollinating findings from outside the hospitality and business bodies of literature to address healthy eating nudging in restaurants. Moreover, this research has strong practical implications because all of the strategies brought forward can be implemented by restaurateurs at little to no cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of low-calorie menu items as optimal defaults and visual cues may nudge consumers to healthier choices at restaurants. However, little is known regarding their effects on emotions and behavioral intentions, particularly among people with different levels of health concern. Evaluate optimal defaults and visual cues' effect on anticipated pleasure and order intention depending upon consumers' health concern level. Between-subjects randomized scenario-based experiment. In all, 636 US adults recruited through an online crowdsourcing platform in July 2020. Participants saw 1 of 6 menu boards in a fast-food drive-through simulation. Half the menu boards included meal photos with (1) menu items to be arranged as a combo by choice (ie, create-your-own combo); (2) traditional combos that included high-calorie default items; or (3) optimal combos that included low-calorie default items. The remaining 3 boards were identical without photos. Anticipated pleasure, order intention, and health concern were evaluated with 7-point Likert scales. Statistical tests included multiple regression, Kruskal-Wallis, χ2, and analysis of variance. Education and sex were tested as potential confounders. Optimal combos negatively affected anticipated pleasure (P =.003) and order intention (P <.001) compared with choice combos. Order intention reduction was the same for traditional and optimal combos (P =.128). The presence of photos changed order intention for optimal combos but varied by consumer's health concern level. When health concern was lower, photos decreased the likelihood of ordering the optimal combos (B = −3.06, P =.001), but when health concern was higher, photos enhanced ordering intention compared with the choice group (B = 0.60, P =.001). The photos did not affect anticipated pleasure for any level of health concern. The adverse effect of optimal defaults and how visual cues may reduce their negative effect should be considered in menu design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Menu design is important to restaurateurs. Past studies show that menu design can be effective in enhancing consumers' attitudes, behavioral intentions, and purchases. In the present study the evidential level of the menu-design literature is evaluated using p -curve, a recently developed meta-analytical technique. Both the full and half p -curves are significantly right-skewed, suggesting that the reported effects of menu design are real. We test a few moderators where evidential values in some subsets of the literature may vary. Further analyses show that evidential values are high across studies with different sample sizes and years of publication, appearing in hospitality or foodservice journals, conducted in the US or outside, in the field or lab, and using mock or real menus. In general, the menu-design literature does not seem to be tainted by p -hacking, which refers to researchers' exploitation of degrees of freedom in data collection and reporting to produce significant results. • The evidential level of the menu-design literature is evaluated using p -curve. • P -hacking does not seem to be present in the menu-design literature. • The effects reported in the menu-design literature seem to be real. • Statistical power in almost all cases surpasses 80 %. • These desirable properties hold in different subsets of the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A meta-analysis of 53 papers with 16,522 participants is conducted in the menu-design literature. To conceptualize different design elements, we extend a four-dimensional model by including two new dimensions—menu card label and menu item characteristics. We find that effect sizes vary among these six dimensions. Specifically, menu card characteristics that concern non-descriptive design elements have the largest effect size. The six dimensions are divided into two broad categories that relate to the entire menu or individual menu items. Our meta-analytical results show that the former category yields larger effect than the latter. Concerning the dependent variables, menu design has a large effect on physiological measures, a moderate effect on intention and attitude, and a marginal effect on actual purchase. Furthermore, laboratory studies yield larger effects than field studies do, and mock menus have stronger effect than real menus. Lastly, publication bias seems to be moderate. • We conduct a meta-analysis of 53 papers (n = 16,522) in the menu design literature. • Effect sizes vary among the six dimensions of menu design. • Menu design has a large effect on physiological measures. • It has a medium effect on intention and attitude, and a small effect on purchase. • Differences among experimental methodologies and settings are observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Dutch food composition databases (Dutch-FCDB) are accurate enough to plan experimental diets with specified amounts of energy and macronutrients. From 2003 to 2012, 10 controlled dietary intervention trials lasting from 2 to 13 weeks were conducted in different seasons. The energy, macronutrients, dietary fibre, water and fatty acids contents of the test diets were calculated with 3 releases of the Dutch-FCDB and compared with the chemically analyzed nutrients in 25 duplicate diets, except for fatty acids which were analyzed in 10 diets. Calculated values of energy and macronutrient content, especially carbohydrates, were higher than values based on analysis. Correlation coefficients ranged from 0.57 for energy to 1.00 for polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). Bland–Altman plots showed considerable differences for the individual diets, limits of agreement (mean ±1.96 SD) were −11.0 to +11.0 g/day for protein, −14.2 to +21.6 g/day for total fat, −4.8 to +57.0 g/day for carbohydrates and −10.7 to +11.5 g/day for dietary fibre. We therefore conclude that Dutch-FCDB can be considered accurate enough for planning of experimental diets to be provided in controlled dietary intervention trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]