Company's software dishes nutrition information for restaurants.

FoodCalc LLC

San Mateo

CEO: Lucy Needham

Founded: 2003

Web site: http://www.foodcalc.com

Phone: 888.804.0001

Lucy Needham wants to take the guesswork out of eating out.

The founder and chief executive officer of FoodCalc LLC, a San Mateo-based nutrition software firm, is capitalizing on a movement to change the way restaurants list their ingredients.

"I predicted this would happen more than five years ago when I was dining out with my father," Needham said, "and wished I could learn the nutritional content of each dish on the menu to help my selection."

Laws have been passed requiring restaurants to post nutritional information on their menus and menu boards in San Francisco and New York City. Both are being challenged in court.

San Mateo County is considering a menu law and Santa Clara County earlier this year began requiring a handful of chain restaurants in unincorporated areas to post dietary data.

A state law is proposed for California, but faces the threat of a veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In response to the apparent trend, Needham has begun offering CookedApple, an online nutrition analysis program that is vying for the business of chain eateries like Chipotle, Pasta Pomodoro, Johnny Rockets and In-N-Out Burger.

FoodCalc is no Johnny-come-lately; since 2003, it has sold more than 400 subscriptions to LabelCalc, a Web-based program that lets manufacturers calculate the nutritional value of virtually any food.

Needham expects revenue will triple to $300,000 this year. Standard food analysis in the laboratory can cost upwards of $500 to $1,000 per recipe, and nutritional CD-ROM sets that can analyze an entire menu can run into thousands. Using FoodCalc's 18,000-ingredient USDA nutrient laboratory database to calculate menu label information can cut those costs in half or more, Needham said.