Restaurant Licencee Fees

Costs

Health Check is the only third-party, non-profit, national food information program in Canada. The program is voluntary and runs on a cost-recovery basis. Restaurants must first ensure their items meet the nutrient criteria in order to display the Health Check logo.

Fees

To ensure that the program is widely accessible to all companies small or large, fees are kept as low as possible.

There are two components to fees:

1. one-time menu item evaluation fees(ranging from $150 to $700)

This one-time fee is paid by any food service provider that wishes to include a menu

item in the program. The evaluation fee covers the costs associated with the

enrolment and participation process, which corresponds to:

$700 for the first recipe submitted;
$425 for additional recipes requiring a different lab certificate (for up to 6
recipes);
$300 for additional recipes requiring a different lab certificate (7 or more
recipes);
$150 for similar recipes (e.g., different meal size for which no lab certificate
required).

Restaurants will be charged at a rate of $200/hour for recipe reformulations. This charge

covers the review of the new menu or nutrition information.

2. annual licensing fee for menu items. The menu item evaluation fee is a one-time fee applied when the menu item is initially registered and covers the cost of evaluation and certification. To encourage additional menu item participation, Health Check has recently changed its fee structure. This new structure will encourage restaurants to have more Health Check products, giving Canadians more healthy choices. As of Fall 2012, the fees are calculated per number of restaurant outlets.

The fees charged range from $50 to $250 per unit, depending on the size of the franchise.