The coalition backed by the companies will have to gather at least 623,212 petition signatures from registered voters before the California Secretary of State can qualify the initiative for the statewide ballot next year.

To retrain its more than 4,500-strong tech staff, or 35% of employees, TSYS had many of them take dozens of hours of online courses.

Past research has suggested calorie counts lead to modest or no changes, and Wednesday’s study suggests that also seems to be the case in the South, where obesity rates tend to be higher. Still, the authors say more research is needed to understand the effects of the practice, especially over the long run and in other settings, like sit-down restaurants.