2.2.1. Fast-Food Categories and Products

Of the 5840 products in the 2020 database, 30.4% were included in the analysis (n = 1772) and 59.8% (n = 3492) products were removed from the dataset as no information was available on serving size, package size and nutrients, with an additional 9.9% removed due to missing key nutrient data, implausible nutrient values, and/or no information on serving or package size. Food categories with less than 30 products were excluded except for 'Fries' (n = 25 products) because this is one of the most frequently consumed fast-food items [22], and there is little variation of products within the category. Those 'Sides' not available for sale separately were excluded (n = 118, 2.0%) from the analysis (Figure 1). Identical products with different serving sizes were retained as some nutrient targets [23] are set according to serving size. For products where the nutritional information was provided only per 100 g and the serving size was also available, the products' nutrition composition per serving was calculated.

Where applicable, we assessed the proportion of food items within the fast-food categories that exceeded the UK targets for sodium [23] and sugar [16]. This required further categorisation of some of the specific food items as the target to apply depended on certain ingredients (such as containing processed meat) or product size (fries < 8 mm or ≥8 mm in width).
