On Nov. 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized two rules requiring that calorie information be listed on menus and menu boards in chain restaurants, retail food operations, and vending machines to provide consumers with more nutritional information about the foods they eat outside of the home. The final menu-labeling rule applies to restaurants…

The Affordable Care Act mandates employers with 100 or more full-time-equivalent employees to offer healthcare coverage to full-time employees in 2015. While foodservice operators and other businesses with 50-99 full-time employees have until 2016 to offer coverage, they must start tracking healthcare-coverage-related employee data in January 2015 for reports that must be submitted to the…

Citing lengthier than expected talks with antitrust regulators, the megamerger between the nation’s two largest broadline distributors is taking a bit longer than anticipated. When Sysco Corp. announced its planned acquisition of US Foods last December, the Houston company expected the deal to close by the end of September 2014, then pushed it to the…

Election Day last week saw five states approve ballot measures that will gradually raise the minimum wage. Twenty-five other states have passed similar laws in recent years. Voters in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota supported proposals to raise wages for their lowest-paid workers; Illinois approved a non-binding measure, which won’t immediately change the current…

While San Francisco voters approved that hike in the minimum wage to $15 by 2018, they rejected a 2-cent tax on sugary drinks. Not so in neighboring Berkeley, Calif., which became the first American city to pass a law taxing sugary drinks, including sodas. More than three-quarters of the votes cast were in favor of…

Target was not the first nor last retailer to be the victim of a data breach. Dairy Queen says that 306 of it 4,500 stores were hacked in early October and more than 200 Jimmy John’s outlets were affected by a different bug in July. On Oct. 17, Pres. Obama signed an executive order aimed…

Everyone loves New York, but no city wants to emulate at least one foodservice issue affecting the nation’s largest city. In 2013, 62% of a record 15,000 sewer-backup complaints there were caused by buildups of fat, oil and grease (FOG). Smaller cities are taking different approaches to combat the issue and finding different outcomes. Officials…

Despite requests from Orange County, Calif.’s health agency to replace its existing pass/fail restaurant-inspection system with a letter-grading or color-coding program, there will be no change made to the county’s current health-inspection program. On Sept. 29, the county’s Board of Supervisors refused to support the changes recommended by the health agency, which included a three-year…

The low-temp cold war between the U.S. and Russia continues to play out in the world of quick-serve foodservice. Last month, the Moscow Arbitration Court levied a 100,000 ruble fine ($2,583) on Burger Rus LLC, operator and manager of Burger King restaurants in Russia, for the storage of unauthorized items in refrigerators alongside food. The…

The Federal Trade Commission is considering a possible antitrust lawsuit to block the planned merger of Sysco Corp. and US Foods. The FTC, which has been investigating the merger for several months, is concerned that combining the nation’s two biggest food suppliers to restaurants, schools and other institutions could threaten competition. Sysco announced plans in…