How to add calories and nutrition info to your menu

There are two reasons restaurants put calories on a menu. Some have to: in Saudi Arabia, calorie information on restaurant and café menus is a regulatory requirement. Others choose to, because some of their guests count calories, follow a gym plan or manage a health condition, and a café next to a gym in New Cairo or Sheikh Zayed can expect to hear "how many calories is this?" often.

Either way, the hard part is not the display. It is getting a number you can stand behind for each dish, and keeping it correct when the recipe changes. This guide walks through the calculation method with a worked example, the mistakes that make numbers wrong, practical display formats, how to handle modifiers and diet labels, and a routine for keeping everything current.

1Who needs to show calories, and what exactly

Start by knowing which rules apply to you, because they decide the format:

• Saudi Arabia: the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) has required food outlets to display calorie counts on their menus since 2019. The detailed requirements (which items, how the number is shown, and additional disclosures) have been updated over time, so read the current SFDA guidance or ask your municipality before you design anything.
• Egypt and other markets: check the current guidance from your national food safety authority (in Egypt, the National Food Safety Authority). Where display is voluntary, you have more freedom on format, but the number still has to be honest.
• Chains and franchises: brand standards often require calories even where local law does not. Check your franchise manual.

As a minimum, show energy in kilocalories (kcal) per serving as served. Protein, carbohydrate and fat are optional extras that fitness-focused guests appreciate. Allergens are a separate topic with their own rules; see our allergen and dietary filters guide.

2Three ways to get the numbers

Method	How it works	Cost	Best for
Recipe calculation	Weigh every ingredient, look up values in a food composition database, add them up	Your time (roughly 15 to 30 minutes per dish once set up)	Most independent restaurants and cafés
Nutrition software or a nutritionist	Same principle, done with a professional database and checked by someone qualified	A fee per dish or per menu	Venues with regulatory exposure or large menus
Laboratory analysis	A sample of the finished dish is tested	Highest per dish	Packaged items, chains with fixed recipes, disputes

Recipe calculation is accurate enough for most menus when it is done carefully, and it is the method below.

3Worked example: calculating a chicken rice bowl

The principle: weigh each ingredient as it goes into one portion, multiply by its energy value per gram, and add them up. The values below are approximate reference figures of the kind found in standard food composition tables; use your own database and check the values for your actual products (branded sauces and cheeses vary a lot).

Ingredient (one portion)	Weight	Approx. kcal per 100 g	kcal in portion
Grilled chicken breast (cooked weight)	150 g	165	248
Cooked white rice	180 g	130	234
Olive oil (marinade and finishing)	10 g	884	88
Tahini (in the sauce)	15 g	595	89
Tomato and cucumber salad	100 g	20	20
Total	455 g		679

You would display this as 680 kcal. Rounding to the nearest 10 is sensible; a number like 679 suggests a precision your kitchen cannot deliver plate to plate.

If your database gives macronutrients rather than calories, use the standard conversion factors: 4 kcal per gram of protein, 4 kcal per gram of carbohydrate, 9 kcal per gram of fat, and 7 kcal per gram of alcohol. A dessert sauce with 20 g of sugar and 5 g of butterfat comes to (20 x 4) + (5 x 9) = 125 kcal.

4Where the numbers usually go wrong

Most calorie errors come from a handful of predictable places. Check each one for every dish:

• Raw versus cooked weights. Rice, pasta and meat change weight when cooked. Use a database value that matches the state you weighed (cooked rice with cooked rice values).
• Frying oil. Fried food absorbs oil, and it is rarely in the recipe card. Estimate it by weighing the oil before and after frying a known number of portions, then divide.
• Cooking fat and butter "to taste". A cook's splash of oil or knob of butter can be the biggest single number on the plate. Standardise it with a measure.
• Sauces and dressings. Tahini, mayonnaise-based sauces and cream sauces are dense in calories. Weigh the portion the line actually uses, not the ideal one.
• Drinks. Syrups, condensed milk, whipped cream and full-fat milk turn a coffee into a dessert. Calculate each size separately.
• Portion drift. If the kitchen serves 220 g of rice when the card says 180 g, your number is wrong. Spot-check plates on a scale.

5How to display calories so guests can use them

A number is only useful if it is easy to find and understand. Some practical formats:

• Put the figure next to the price or at the start of the description, in the same place for every item: "680 kcal".
• Use "kcal", not "cal", to avoid confusion.
• Per serving as served, including the sides that come with it. If a side is optional, say so.
• Sharing dishes: give the total and the number of servings ("1,400 kcal, serves 2 to 3").
• Drinks with sizes: give each size its own number.
• Optional macros in a short line: "P 45 g, C 60 g, F 25 g", only if you calculated them.

On Menyo there is no dedicated calorie field today, so the practical approach is to write the figure in a consistent position in each item's description, in every language version, for example "680 kcal. Grilled chicken, rice, tahini sauce and salad." Vegan and vegetarian tags and spice levels are separate attributes that guests can filter on.

6Modifiers, build-your-own dishes and diet labels

Customisable dishes are where calorie display gets messy. Three approaches, from simplest to most precise:

1. Show a range for build-your-own items: "450 to 900 kcal depending on choices".
2. Show the base dish and put the calories of each add-on in its name or description: "Extra cheese (+110 kcal)". This works well when add-ons are set up as modifiers, as described in our guide to sizes, add-ons and toppings.
3. Calculate the most common combinations and list them as separate items if a few dominate your sales.

Diet labels such as "high protein", "low carb" or "keto friendly" need a written rule before you use them. Decide your threshold (for example a minimum protein weight per serving for "high protein") and apply it consistently. Avoid medical wording like "diabetic friendly" unless a qualified professional has reviewed the dish, because some guests will rely on it.

7Keeping the numbers current

Calorie information goes stale quietly: a supplier changes, the chef adjusts a sauce, a portion grows. A simple routine prevents that:

• Keep one spreadsheet with each dish's ingredients, weights, values and total, plus the date calculated.
• Any recipe or portion change triggers a recalculation before the change goes live.
• When a supplier or branded product changes, check the new label and update the values.
• Once a quarter, weigh five random plates from the line and compare with the recipe card.
• Update the digital menu the same day the number changes; on a printed menu, that means a reprint.

This is one area where a digital menu has a clear practical advantage: correcting a wrong calorie figure takes a minute rather than a print run. Our guide to real-time menu updates covers the workflow.

8Frequently asked questions

Do restaurants in Egypt have to show calories?

Requirements change, so check the current guidance from Egypt's National Food Safety Authority for your type of venue. Saudi Arabia is the clearest example in the region of a mandatory calorie display rule for restaurants and cafés.

How accurate do calorie numbers need to be?

They should reflect the dish as it is actually served, calculated from real weights and a reliable database. Rounding to the nearest 10 kcal is reasonable. Plate-to-plate variation is normal; systematic errors, like ignoring frying oil, are not.

Can I use AI to estimate calories?

An AI tool can help you look up ingredient values or check your arithmetic, but do not publish a number it guessed from a dish name. It does not know your portions, your oil or your sauce.

Should I show macros as well as calories?

Only if you have calculated them properly. They are valued by fitness-focused guests, so they make sense for cafés near gyms or healthy-food concepts, less so for a traditional restaurant.

9Start with your ten best sellers

Pick your ten highest-selling items, cook each as the line does, weigh every ingredient and calculate the totals in one spreadsheet. Publish those first, in a consistent format, then work through the rest of the menu. If you operate in Saudi Arabia, check the current SFDA requirements before you publish anything.

If you want a menu where a corrected calorie figure is live on every table the moment you save it, you can sign up for Menyo; plans start at $19 a month.