A new online calorie calculator is this morning being unveiled by the Food Safety Authority.
The calculator will be free of charge to Ireland's 22 thousand food service businesses to allow them to count the calorie values in the food they sell.
It works by taking into account the ingredients used, method of preparation and portion size.
Menu Cal is considered the first of its kind in Europe and the FSAI has received interest from other countries wishing to adopt the system.
Dr Mary Flynn from the Food Safety Authority says it may prove fundamental in tackling the obesity problem in Ireland:
However the Restaurants Association says forcing restaurants to display calorie counts on their menus will cost the industry €110 million euro.
The Association says the New MenuCAL Calculator will require chefs to manually input data for each dish. This will take each Chef on average 5 hours per week, 20 hours per month to complete a 40 item monthly menu.
The group has called it an unnecessary burden on restaurants. It says alorie counts on menus have already been introduced in the United States, with disastrous results with five out of six customers saying they pay no attention to the information, according to a study by New York University.
