Friday 19 October 2007

Salt

I'm not a company spokesman, so I'm not going to defend the fact that a report has found we are the most salty fast food restaurant. But are we really fast food? We're a chain of restaurants who provide dine in, collection, delivery and a relatively new fast food format. Not really fast food, but we are in the Fast Food Song. So in that way the comparison isn't really fair.

But...they used the Pizza Plus meal deal for 4. They divided the salt content into 4 and got as 12.3g of salt each. They then say thats 4 times the recommended amount for a 6 year old. Just a little problem though, 6 year olds don't each as much as adults so are unlikely to have a quarter of the meal deal.

It is interesting to note that McDonalds came out reasonably well (shock: bag of apple and grapes has less salt than a chicken wrap). McDonalds being so big and the stereotype of fast food, has meant they need to be careful with everything now. It all tastes different now. They know where their meat comes from - and are proud to tell everyone. Pizza Hut on the other hand hasn't really been picked on, so has so far managed to get away with what they want - but maybe it will change. Slowly we are changing. When I started they said the chargrilled chicken would be changing to "real 100% chicken breast", a year on and they are still babbling on about how it will be "real" soon. Just how does it take to stop putting the entire carcass in the mincer.

Well after that small moan and definitely not a company advert - I will just mention - PHQ! A new delivery only format has launched in two cities (forget which). They have explicitly stated in the 'Big 5' newsletter that it is to rival Dominos and target a younger market. They do have a website, but it doesn't work. Good start guys.

3 comments:

James (UK) said...

"PHQ" sounds interesting... "Pretty Hot and Quick"? ;-)

The salt thing illustrates exactly why I never really read or believe anything I see or get told about that's been in the newspapers. I just take it with a pinch of salt...

(Sorry! ;-) )

It seems people are so gullible these days, they'll believe anything you tell them, if you shout it loud enough.

My own Mother will often ask me about something she's seen in the papers, and no matter how I try and dispel her fears if I do have an understanding of what it was about, she'll still tend to believe the newspaper over me!

Al said...

If you listen to the media then everything is bad for you these days. So what if the meal has a high salt content, it's only going to be truly harmful if you're eating it all the time and if you're eating at Pizza Hut, McDonalds etc. all the time then you probably couldn't give a damn anyway.

I wouldn't consider Pizza Hut as a fast food place either since the majority of their business seems to be eat in and delivery.

Anonymous said...

PHQ (Pizza Hut Quick), should have been PHD as with the rest of the world but PHD is already copyrighted in the uk. Pizza Hut have set up PHQ to create more of a divide between their dine in restaurants, Pizza Hut Express and Delivery... all soon to be PHQ

PHQ has been set up to target the younger and more studenty customers of pizza hut, there are currently 3 in britain and all of godfathers pizza of ireland has been bought over and turned into PHQ's, meaining there about 35 PHQ's in the UK. Evey Pizza Hut Delivery will be phased out and will move to PHQ within the next 2 years aswell as a significant rise in the number of new PHQ's opening up a d being franchised

It uses fresh dough made on the premises, new starters, drinks and desserts including Wingstreet Chicken - meaning there will be about 32 different ways to have your chicken with your pizza or pasta, PHQ have a simplified and better value menu, also selling small pizzas, something Pizza Hut Delivery never did

Also... PHQ does infact have a website: www.phqdelivery.co.uk which has infact been up and running for a good while now offering the same online ordering service as www.pizzahut.co.uk/delivery.

PHQ also has a facebook for the ireland franchises.