Possible FDA Labeling Requirements in Restaurants

No need to panic for ChefTec customers

BOULDER, Colo. - Oct 27, 2003 - Culinary Software Services' President Brian Bennett has moved to reassure thousands of restaurants, foodservice operations and other culinary professionals that possible new FDA nutritional information requirements for commercial eateries should be seen as an opportunity, not an obstacle.

The Food and Drug Administration is reportedly considering posting nutritional information in restaurants in efforts to stem the U.S. obesity crisis. Although there are no concrete plans to implement such a system immediately, the potential impact on many restaurants without nutritional analysis capability is significant.

Bennett's upbeat attitude towards the program, which has been proposed by deputy FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford, co-chairman of an agency task force on obesity, stems from the fact that every version of his popular ChefTec software since 1997 has come packaged with a sophisticated nutritional analysis element. At the click of a button, food service operators can calculate the nutritional values of their recipes based on USDA provided nutritional data. Nutrition Facts labels conforming to the FDA format can also be printed for packaging.

Bennett claims "We saw this coming - originally we included nutritional analysis capability to ensure that our customers could justify using terms such as low-sodium and heart-healthy, but over the last couple of years it has become obvious that at some point the likelihood was that they would need to have nutritional information available for all recipes and menu items."

In fact, the only problems that Bennett sees ahead are not regulatory in nature at all. "If you have ChefTec, you're ahead of the game - you can do everything that the FDA is proposing. My only worry is that when customers see the number of calories in a creme brulee, they'll be ordering low-fat sorbets for the rest of their lives!"

Basic ChefTec retails for $595; the full-featured ChefTec Plus retails for $995. Both come with nutritional analysis pre-packaged.

About Culinary Software Services, Inc.
Culinary Software Services, maker of ChefTec™, CorTec™ and BevTec™ software, is a leader in back-of-the-house technology for the foodservice industry. The software offers state-of-the-art inventory control, recipe and menu costing, and nutritional analysis. Cutting edge technology provides cost and time savings for foodservice operations. ChefTec twice won the Innovator's Award for Technology from the California Restaurant Association and the 2002 IQ Award for Innovation in Software. ChefTec and CorTec are installed in diverse foodservice operations around the world. Installations include all Marriott International Hotels Worldwide, Charlie Trotter's, Whole Foods Market, Dean & Deluca, The Art Institute of New York City, Le Bec-Fin and the Weber Grill. Founded in 1990, Culinary Software Services is located in Boulder, Colorado. For more information visit our web site at www.culinarysoftware.com.

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