THAT’S RIGHT, A HEALTHY DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL

Even the most strident zero trans fat proponents couldn’t have predicted how rapidly the foodservice industry would move to address their concerns. Seemingly overnight, thousands of restaurants have voluntarily removed trans fat-laden items from their menus and kitchens. Those who haven’t find themselves wondering what enforcement of the trans fat ban in New York City (and soon, elsewhere) is going to mean. If only we had all been smart enough to have bought canola oil futures on the Winnipeg Commodities Exchange last year!

Big restaurant corporations move cautiously whenever they make changes to their menus. They tinker with new ideas and products in-house for months or even years, then run them past consumer focus groups for additional feedback, eventually introducing them in a handful of test markets to see how they work in day-to-day operations. Only when items and ingredients have passed these tests will company executives give the OK to implement any changes systemwide. If you have hundreds of restaurants and you’re making an ingredient change that will affect the taste, texture, smell and mouth-feel of perhaps dozens of your menu times, you want to tread very, very carefully.

Even so, look at Denny’s, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Wendy’s, Chili’s and Au Bon Pain. Chains are getting rid of, or at least cutting way back on, trans fat at what seems like mind-bending pace. Hotel operator like Loews are following suit. Few companies want to wait around until rule makers and legislators mandate the change for them.

Why? "It just makes sense and it’s the right time to go that way," says Christina Findley, F&B director at the Loews Vanderbilt in Nashville says. "There’s really not a reason to have ’trans fats’ anymore. They were developed to make food more shelf-stable, but with modern distribution, it’s less of a concern."

What does concern operators is the performance of zero-trans fat (ZTF) products, particularly frying oil. While their announcement came suddenly, the people at Darden Restaurants, for example, had to be convinced that any new oil would perform equally well in all 1,267 of its Red Lobster and Olive Garden North American units before making a switch. "We have been testing for more than 18 months in restaurants all around the country with a variety of different frying oils," Darden director of communications Deborah Robinson told the Orlando Sentinel. "In the first phase of testing, we found some oils just didn’t produce the flavors we expected. When you’re making a wholesale change, this is not a slam dunk when you just substitute an oil." In the end, the company opted for a ZTF canola oil product.

Foodservice manufacturers, who saw this coming but are perhaps surprised at how rapidly it took hold, have been quick to respond to operator concerns. Big companies like General Mills, Sara Lee, ConAgra and others now provide viable options for many products, including alternative frying oils. But perhaps the biggest news to date has come from potato processing giant McCain Foods. More than 50 products currently sold in the foodservice sector by McCain are now available with zero grams trans fat and all of the company’s foodservice French fry and potato products will be zero grams trans fat in 12 months. The company took out a full-page ad in a recent Sunday edition of the New York Times to herald its commitment to zero trans fat products.

Fellow French fry giant Lamb Weston was ahead of the game, too. It now offers several lines of no trans fat products.

Why is this a big deal? One problem operators faced in offering zero trans fat French fries-let’s face it, French fries are the No. 1 target of the ZTF movement-was that doing so gave them a double-barreled challenge. Changing a restaurant’s deep frying oil to a zero trans fat option was one step that had to be taken. But French fries purchased from foodservice manufacturers are par-fried at the factory level using oil that, until lately, contained trans fats. The steps taken by McCain and others solves the second part of the equation.

It’s certainly a big deal to operators in New York City, because that’s where the country’s first ban on trans fat will take effect soon. Actually, the ban is already in effect, but enforcement hasn’t started yet.

It will in July, 2007. Penalties are expected to range from $200 to $2,000 per offense. City officials have promised its inspectors will give restaurants a three-month grace period-i. e., restaurants will be inspected and offenders will be written up, but they will be allowed time to come into compliance and avoid fines. After the grace period, justice will be swift.

And expensive. New York City health inspectors are famous for their...how shall we put this...vigorous enforcement of the city’s laws. Roughly 20 percent of New York City restaurants fail their annual health inspections, with recent flunkees including legendary operations like Brooklyn steakhouse Peter Luger’s and the Carnegie Deli, as well as such temples of gastronomy as David Bouley’s Bouley and Daniel Boulud’s Daniel. New York City restaurants paid $37.6 million in