A multi-country comparison of jurisdictions with and without mandatory nutrition labelling policies in restaurants: analysis of behaviours associated with menu labelling in the 2019 International Food Policy Study.

Objective: To examine differences in noticing and use of nutrition information comparing jurisdictions with and without mandatory menu labelling policies and examine differences among sociodemographic groups.

Design: Cross-sectional data from the International Food Policy Study (IFPS) online survey.

Setting: IFPS participants from Australia, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and USA in 2019.

Participants: Adults aged 18-99; 19 393.

Results: Participants in jurisdictions with mandatory policies were significantly more likely to notice and use nutrition information, order something different, eat less of their order and change restaurants compared to jurisdictions without policies. For noticed nutrition information, the differences between policy groups were greatest comparing older to younger age groups and comparing high education (difference of 10·7 %, 95 % CI 8·9, 12·6) to low education (difference of 4·1 %, 95 % CI 1·8, 6·3). For used nutrition information, differences were greatest comparing high education (difference of 4·9 %, 95 % CI 3·5, 6·4) to low education (difference of 1·8 %, 95 % CI 0·2, 3·5). Mandatory labelling was associated with an increase in ordering something different among the majority ethnicity group and a decrease among the minority ethnicity group. For changed restaurant visited, differences were greater for medium and high education compared to low education, and differences were greater for higher compared to lower income adequacy.

Conclusions: Participants living in jurisdictions with mandatory nutrition information in restaurants were more likely to report noticing and using nutrition information, as well as greater efforts to modify their consumption. However, the magnitudes of these differences were relatively small.