Hungry Jacks introduces kilojoule contents to its menus

Posted by AFN Staff Writers on 18th October 2011

Hungry Jack’s has become the first major fast food chain in Australia to display the kilojoule content of items on its restaurant menus across Australia.

From today, kilojoule content of every Hungry Jack’s product – from burgers to salads – are displayed in its 345 restaurants in Australia. The fast food chain’s menus will also display the average adult daily energy intake of 8700 kilojoules, allowing its customers to work out how much of this will be consumed by their choice from the menu.

Hungry Jack’s CEO Aaron McKie said, “We thought it was important to implement this initiative across the country, not just in New South Wales where it will be a legislative requirement by February next year. We hope there will be consistency to the approach taken by other states and territory governments considering similar legislation.

Mr McKie also said that Hungry Jack’s has been working to improve the nutritional content of its menu by reducing saturated fat, sodium and sugar levels.

“For example, the sugar in Hungry Jack’s buns has been reduced by over 60 per cent, the sodium level in chicken nuggets slashed by a third (34.3 per cent) and our move to a canola-based oil blend has seen the saturated fat levels in our fries reduced by a massive 76 per cent,” Mr McKie said.

In September 2011, Australian Food News reported on McDonald’s Australia’s plan to introduce the kilojoule content of items on its restaurant menus across Australia later this year.

Organic beef also on the menu

In the same announcement, Hungry Jack’s has also claimed that it is the first Australian fast food chain to introduce organic beef to its burgers. According to Hungry Jack’s, the new ‘Country Burger’, launched this week, is sourced from 20 certified organic cattle producers from Australia’s Channel Country, which incorporates parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales.

As part of its new brand direction, Hungry Jack’s is also dropping its 16 year old tagline, ‘the Burgers are Better at Hungry Jack’s’, replacing it with ‘Hungry Jack’s makes it better’.