Read It and Weep?
Big Mac Wrapper
To Show Fat, Calories

Would you care for some reading material with your fries?

McDonald's Corp. said it will start posting nutritional data on some product packages next year, responding to pressure from consumer groups and working to alter the popular perception that the food served at the world's largest restaurant chain is unhealthy.

Starting in February in Turin, Italy, McDonald's will print the calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and sodium contained in some of its most popular menu items on wrappers and boxes. The data will be posted on packages at all of the roughly 13,600 McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. during the first half of 2006, and at about 20,000 restaurants world-wide by year end. Executives declined to estimate when the data would be offered in 10,000 or so remaining restaurants in smaller foreign markets, where language issues and nutritional testing are more complicated.

Big Macs, premium chicken sandwiches, french fries and salads are among the first products that will be served up with nutritional details, with other items expected to follow.

It isn't clear whether the data will boost sales of the chain's healthier fare -- or hurt sales of its less-healthy items. The chain's iconic Big Mac has 560 calories, about 28% of the amount the federal government recommends a man should consume each day, based on a 2,000-a-day calorie diet. The sandwich contains about 30 grams of fat, about 47% of the daily amount recommended by the federal government.

McDonald's, Burger King Corp. and Yum Brands Inc.'s KFC are among the restaurant chains that post nutrition data on their Web sites and print it in brochures available in restaurants. Subway, owned by Doctor's Associates Inc., also prints nutrition data on cups and napkins in the U.S. and Canada. Critics, however, have said those steps don't go far enough.

"If we're concerned about the obesity epidemic, having nutritional data on the menu is a way to deal with it," says Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington advocacy group. Diners need the information before they order, not when they settle in to eat and, in some cases, throw away their wrappers, he said.

The nation's restaurant industry has been entangled in fierce debates over how to disclose nutritional data to their increasingly health-conscious customers. Already, several state legislatures, including New York's, are weighing measures that would force some restaurants to print nutrition data on the menu.

Yesterday, several customers at a Chicago McDonald's had mixed feelings about getting the nutritional details. Gerry Curington, a clothing-store manager who said she is in her 50s, said she might switch her Cobb salad order to a regular salad -- one without the bacon bits, eggs and blue cheese -- if she learned the Cobb had a lot of sodium or fat.

"When you eat a salad, you think you're eating healthy, but it depends on what's in there," Ms. Curington said. "I would love to know."

Shannon Gallager, a 24-year-old accountant, was eating a 10-piece serving of Chicken McNuggets, medium fries and a medium diet Coke. If all those calories and fat and sodium grams start staring out at her from McDonald's products, she said, she might change her eating habits. "I don't really think about it," she said, wiping her hands with a napkin after taking a bite of chicken, "but if you have the information, it's like, 'Oh my God!' "

Ms. Gallager says she comes to McDonald's for the convenience and the price of the food. "Most people don't think it's good for you," she added. "So if that were your main concern, you probably wouldn't be eating here anyway."

Yesterday, Jim Skinner, chief executive of McDonald's, said putting nutrition data on menus would be "complicated, in terms of the number of items on the menu board and the number of changes that occur" as customers make special orders. (About 75% of Americans customize their restaurant orders, according to the National Restaurant Association.)

Full-service restaurants, in particular, have resisted efforts to force menu disclosure, arguing that chefs routinely tweak recipes, effectively changing nutritional composition. Another reason the industry has resisted menu disclosure: Small, independent restaurants would have to pay for expensive nutritional analysis, eroding their already-thin profit margins.

McDonald's said it has tested the nutrition packages in Colombia, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and four local U.S. markets, among other places.

McDonald's executives say they chose calories and the four other nutritional points based on what customers in test markets, as well as public-health experts, said are most relevant. In the U.S., the data will be available in English and Spanish, and in Canada, in English and French.

Ralph Alvarez, president of McDonald's North America, said the nutrition facts won't hurt profit margins. In fact, Mr. Alvarez said, "as customers navigate the menu" -- particularly toward higher-price premium products -- "it'll be very good for business."

John Glass, a restaurant-industry analyst at CIBC World Markets, Boston, said McDonald's is taking a "calculated risk that labeling will not change" customer order patterns. "If it does push [customers] to the new chicken sandwich or salads -- both with very high price points -- that would be good for penny profit. But they don't want to scare people away from core menu items, like the Big Mac, either."

McDonald's in recent years has taken other steps to dispel the notion that its food is unhealthy. Last year, the chain announced it would remove the "super size" option from its menus -- just weeks before a controversial documentary, titled "Super Size Me," was set to make its U.S. premiere. McDonald's said the decision wasn't related to the film.

McDonald's is heavily promoting a fruit-and-walnut salad, as well as a new line of so-called premium chicken sandwiches. It also has refashioned Ronald McDonald into a fitness "ambassador" who in some cases visits schools.

Write to Steven Gray at steven.gray@wsj.com and Ilan Brat at ilan.brat@wsj.com