From Burger King to Costa: UK's highest-grossing restaurant chains fail to meet nutrition targets, study finds

Data from the 21 highest-grossing restaurant chains in the UK in 2024 found that less than half of menu items met the UK Government’s voluntary sugar, salt, and calorie reduction targets.

From Pret and Costa, the popular British coffee chains, to fast food chains like Burger King, Papa John’s, and Leon’s, a majority of the menu items of these highest-grossing restaurant chains fail to meet the nutrition targets set by the United Kingdom government. 

Only 43 per cent of the total 3,099 menu items tested from the 21 highest-grossing restaurant chains met all targets for sugar, salt, and calorie reduction, as set by the UK Government, according to a May 2026 study by the University of Oxford, published in the PLOS Medicine Journal.

Major findings 

Researchers observed that only nine of the 21 restaurants had more than half of their menu items meeting all targets. Papa John’s menu items were the lowest in adhering to calorie (35 per cent) and salt (8 per cent) targets. Meanwhile, menu items from Burger King, KFC, Nando's, and Vintage Inns had zero adherence to the sugar targets. 

Menu items from Caffé Nero had the highest mean calorie content per 100 g (368 kcal) across all restaurants. While menu items from Prezzo had the highest salt content (1.8 g), and menu items from Costa had the highest sugar content (22.0 g). Per serving, menu items from Prezzo had the highest calorie (644 kcal) and salt content (3.7 g), and menu items from Harvester had the highest sugar content (17.2 g).

“Interestingly, restaurants with similar menu styles performed quite differently in meeting the targets. This shows the nutritional quality of menus is not fixed by cuisine type, making the shift towards healthier menus a more attainable goal for food companies,” Alice O’Hagan, the principal author of the study, says.   

The proportion of menu items that met all salt, sugar, and calorie targets for all 21 restaurants. Data Source: University of Oxford study 

Why is this a concern for the UK?

Experts warn that the fast food restaurant chains are a major contributor to increasing the incidence of lifestyle-related health problems. A 2025 study by the Cambridge University Press, published in the PubMed Central shows that ultra-processed foods account for 54 per cent of the total energy intake in the UK.  

The country also has the third-highest obese population in Europe. “Obesity puts people at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease, which remains one of the UK’s biggest killers,” John Maingay, Director of Policy, British Heart Foundation, said in a press release in 2025. Therefore, it remains a critical public health challenge as it costs the National Health Service (NHS)  £11.4 billion a year to manage it. 

Co-author Lauren Bandy, analysing UK restaurant chains, adds, “Voluntary targets alone are not delivering consistent improvements in the salt, sugar or calorie content of food items on offer in UK restaurants. Our findings highlight the potential value of stricter regulation in the out-of-home sector, and show that improving transparency and accountability of individual food companies will be key in supporting healthier food provision for the UK population.”