Digital Signage—Serving up new menu changes in the restaurant industry

Across the UK there’s a growing concern about the negative health repercussions stemming from poor eating habits of customers dinning at fast food establishments. This has amounted to billions of pounds a year going to the NHS to compensate for health expenses. In the effort to move towards reshaping and informing the unhealthy eating habits of dinners, the UK Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is pushing the QSR industry to display caloric information on menu boards. “Our aim is to give people the help and advice they need to adopt a healthy lifestyle. I want to make it as easy as possible for them to do that. That’s why we’re working with industry to bring in calorie information on menus”, said Mr. Lansley.

Although new provisions displaying nutritional information will guide customers to make more informed eating decisions, it passes on a tremendous burden to the QSR industry. Restaurants are now faced with the task of having to display nutritional information on all menu items. Traditional methods of displaying the information were pamphlets, tray liners, small signage, and food wrappers. This has proven to be very expensive with store owners having recurring printing, processing and distribution costs, and then the information is only viewed once by customers before being discarded.

As a dynamic solution, digital signage contains the necessary requirements needed to display nutritional information while also being cost effective. It eliminates the need to print and distribute static information every time an ingredient or food item changes. It is a powerful communication tool that is able to deliver current menu changes to a large customer base to increase ROI.  

With digital signage, content can easily be managed and communicated to the consumer from one central location, which is especially beneficial to chain restaurants. Digital signage is also a more eye catching, affordable, and powerful way to attract customer's attention, while also displaying an abundance of information. Once overcoming the biggest challenge of gaining the customer's attention, restaurant owners now hold the power to influence customers purchasing decisions, while also informing them of more nutritional menu options. 

As a key player in the digital signage industry, STRATACACHE offers award-winning digital signage software, ActiVia for Media, for quick-service and fast-casual restaurants. With this software, restaurants can not only easily create, schedule, manage, and monitor nutritional information, but they can simultaneously offer descriptions, pricing and graphics. 

Menu boards can also be tailored to customers depending on the time of day, ranging from breakfast to lunch and lunch to dinner. The content can also be localized to specific locations allowing chain restaurants to deliver real-time targeted messages to specific locations based on promotional campaigns. Digital signage is not only helping restaurants display nutritional information, enhancing sales, and engaging customers, but with a 35 percent annual growth rate in the European market, it is proving to be the path to advertising success in today's digital economy.

You'll find STRATACACHE at the forefront of this innovation.