An analysis of the energy content of sweet discretionary products in the out of home sector in Scotland in 2022

Summary

This research gathered calorie information for sweet discretionary products sold out of home, such as cakes, sweet pastries, muffins and doughnuts, between May to September 2022. These foods are considered a discretionary part of the diet as they convey little or no nutritional benefit, and are not part of the Eatwell Guide.  

It explored 18 out-of-home chains that had calorie information available online, or instore, and gathered data for these products that are typically consumed outside of usual meal times, e.g. afternoon snack.

The key findings were:

• the average number of calories per item for all of the products combined was 465 calories
• cold desserts had the highest average value recorded at 709 calories and doughnuts the lowest at 314 calories
• the top three highest value items were from cold desserts (1,639 calories), sweet pancakes and waffles (1,132 calories) and cakes (1,061 calories)
• the top three lowest value items were from biscuits (43 calories), traybakes (121 calories) and sweet pastries (155 calories)
• the majority of products for all categories (apart from doughnuts) were between 325 and 600 calories (61%).  Cold desserts were the only category to have products that were more than 1,400 calories at 5%
• doughnuts have the highest percentage of products that are less than 325 calories and muffins and cold desserts have the least at 1% each

The data shows that there is huge scope for reduction of calorie content which could be achieved in the most part simply by reducing portion size.