Indicators of Restaurant Ability to Offer Healthy Foods to Customers in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Whereas most people expect training and professional skills to lead in evaluating the ability of outlets to offer healthy food products, Nairobi restaurants goers had a different outlook. Based on the general perception among the population of restaurant patrons, this study set out to explore the myth of restaurant ability to offer healthy food products being tied to menus in these outlets. The study also sought to establish the approaches used by healthy food restaurants to differentiate these food categories from other products. A cross-sectional analytical design was adopted whose sample was drawn using random and purposive sampling procedures for restaurants, heads of department and targeted customers. The study involved 296 heads of departments and 382 customers drawn from 74 healthy food restaurants of Nairobi City County. Tools for data collection entailed semi-structured questionnaires and observation checklists. Once data collection was complete, analysis for questionnaire data was done using frequencies and percentages. Observation data was on the other hand analysed and interpreted for an insight into indicators of restaurant ability to offer healthy foods to customers. The study found that most (62.7%) restaurants had the ability to offer healthy foods. Elements that represent restaurant ability according to customers assessment were: menus (37.8%) followed by product quality (14.8%), Equipment (14.8%), raw materials (8.8%), while trained staff was 2.1%. Findings on approaches used to differentiate healthy foods from other foods showed that specialized suppliers (41.5%), freshness (29.9%) and sourcing procedure (28.6%) were used. The major finding of this study was that the main indicator of restaurant ability to offer healthy foods among restaurants of Nairobi city was Menus. This study recommends that another study be carried out to establish the quality of restaurant menus as well as the other indicators in order to rate the extent to which restaurants had the ability to offer healthy foods to customers