Abstract Introduction
Food purchased from takeaways represents an increasing proportion of the UK diet. Takeaway food is high in energy, fat, salt and sugar. We aimed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a Healthy Takeaway Masterclass to improve the quality of takeaway food.Intervention: The Masterclass is a three-hour session which encourages owners and managers of independent takeaways to make changes to their practices to achieve a healthier food offer. The session includes information provision (nutrition and cooking skills education), practical activities (taste testing, sugar estimation) and behaviour-change techniques (goal setting, action planning).
Method
Masterclass participants provided information on their cooking methods, menus, portion sizes, and prices, both before and six weeks after the session. This information was verified by researchers during takeaway visits.
Results
Staff from 18 takeaways attended the Masterclass (10% of those invited). Attendance was not associated with the cuisine type or location of takeaways. The most common changes that were implemented and sustained were those that required the least amount of effort or cost (e.g. reducing salt/sugar in pizza dough). Changes that required takeaways to stock more difficult to source or expensive ingredients (e.g. low sugar tomato ketchup), or were anticipated to be unpopular with customers, were rarely adopted.
Conclusion
The Masterclass is a feasible and intervention that is acceptable to takeaway owners and managers, and which can lead to a healthier takeaway food offer. Further research is needed to understand how to facilitate the supply of healthier ingredients and extend the reach of this intervention. External funding details Financial support: The transforming the ‘foodscape': development and feasibility testing of interventions to promote healthier takeaway, pub or restaurant food project was funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR). This study also received a small amount of matched funding from Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council and additional support from Durham and Newcastle Universities, and the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care of the South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC). The NIHR School for Public Health Research is a partnership between the Universities of Sheffield, Bristol, Cambridge, Imperial and University College London; The London School for Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM); the LiLaC collaboration between the Universities of Liverpool and Lancaster and Fuse; The Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, a collaboration between Newcastle, Durham, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside Universities.