Google Business Profile Adds Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Halal and Kosher Menu Badges

Google Business Profile has added four dietary badges for restaurant menu items: gluten-free, dairy-free, halal and kosher, joining the vegetarian and vegan badges that were already there. Lisa Landsman, who leads restaurant partnerships at Google, announced it on LinkedIn, saying that when guests search Maps or Search for a specific diet, such as “gluten-free dinner near me”, “tagged dishes help your items stand out right on your profile”. Badges are set per dish: in the profile, choose Edit menu, pick an item and tick the badges that apply. For profiles managed through the API, the menu’s DietaryRestriction field gained GLUTEN_FREE and DAIRY_FREE values on 9 October, according to Google’s developer changelog.

If you manage profiles for restaurants, go through the menus and tag the dishes that genuinely qualify. The badges are the restaurant’s own claim and nothing in the announcement says Google checks them, so tag only what the kitchen can stand behind, particularly for halal, kosher and gluten-free, where a diner relies on the label for religious or medical reasons and a wrong one is the kind of thing that ends up in a review.

Sources

• New Google Local Dietary Attributes: Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Halal & Kosher, Search Engine Roundtable
• Lisa Landsman on dietary attributes for restaurants, LinkedIn
• Latest updates, Google Business Profile APIs
• FoodMenus reference: DietaryRestriction, Google Business Profile APIs