In Australia, interest in eating a healthier diet has been on the increase for some time. The Modern Food Report of 2017 revealed that Australians were spending $13.6 billion on healthy food and drinks. A more recent study carried out by CSIRO shows that the value of this market is likely to reach $25 billion by 2030.

Australians are clearly becoming much more interested in healthy eating, fitness, and well-being. It is slowly changing the type of food we see for sale in our supermarkets. There are far more gyms and fitness centres out there than there used to be. According to some studies their numbers have nearly doubled in just 5 years.

Healthy restaurants are popping up in many Australian cities. Something that has been highlighted by Mandoe Media´s latest piece of research. Their “Australia’s Top Cities for Health and Wellness” study has a lot to say about the way Australians are changing their restaurant habits.

Below, we take a closer look at their results.

Melbourne tops the list for quality

Analysis of Google reviews data revealed that Melbourne offered the best quality healthy restaurant food. When you consider that the city has 105 restaurants that have been awarded Chef Hats that result is not that surprising. The standard of cuisine served in the city has been so high for so many years. So, healthy restaurants have to wow diners to secure enough business.

When you look at the list of Chef Hat winners in the city, you will notice that quite a few of them do serve the health-conscious diner sector. Especially those that serve Japanese and Modern Australian dishes. Both cuisines focus on using ultra-fresh ingredients, lean proteins, and a wide variety of vegetables and fruits.

Sydney has the highest number of healthy restaurants

Because healthy eating is so important when it comes to staying fit and well, they included this metric in their research. Using TripAdvisor, Mandoe Media was able to establish how many healthy restaurants there were in each of Australia´s 16 most populated cities.

Unsurprisingly, Sydney ranked first. It is Australia´s largest city and a major tourist destination. In a normal year, nearly seventeen million people spend at least one night in the city. That means that there is plenty of potential business for restaurant owners to tap into. So, the fact that they have the highest number of healthy restaurants in the country, is not really that surprising.

Next was Melbourne, again, no surprise there, it has a large population. Plus, its residents appear to have a strong interest in staying fit.

In the overall rankings, Melbourne ranked third. The fact that, when it comes to gym availability, the city sits at 4th position also contributed to the city doing well overall.

Gold Coast and Adelaide are the Healthiest Australian Cities

When it came to overall rankings, Adelaide and Gold Coast share the top spot,

The fact that it was so easy to find high-quality healthy food in the Gold Coast area played a significant role in it securing the top spot overall. It was 4th for healthy restaurant availability and 6th for quality.

Gold Coast also ranked number one for interest in going to the gym. That certainly contributed to the city beating other larger cities to the top spot. Using Google Keywords planner, the Mandoe Media team was able to find out how often people in each city searched for terms like “gym near me”, “24-hour gym near me” and “gym membership”. Despite having roughly half the population of Sydney and Melbourne, people from Gold Coast were searching for these terms the most.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to proof that Australians are becoming increasingly interested in eating healthy food. If you would like to learn more about how Australians are changing their diet, we suggest you go here.