Menu delay

Diners will have to wait a little longer to find calorie counts on most restaurant chain menus, in supermarkets and on vending machines.

Writing the labeling rules “has gotten extremely thorny,” says the head of the Food and Drug Administration. Some non-restaurants have lobbied hard to be exempted from the 2010 law that charged the FDA with requiring chain restaurants and other establishments that serve food to put calorie counts on menus and in vending machines.

Volt, Prius charge

General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Motor Corp.’s plug-in Prius outsold Nissan Motor Co.’s Leaf globally for the first time, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.

Deliveries of the Volt more than tripled to 30,090 units in 2012, the top seller among vehicles that need to be plugged into a socket for recharging, according to the report Tuesday. It was followed by Toyota’s plug-in Prius, whose first-year sales of 27,181 units exceeded the 25,435 units of the Leaf, the leader in 2011.

GM brake lights under scrutiny

U.S. safety regulators are investigating whether to add more than a million General Motors midsize cars to a recall for brake light problems.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it’s checking into complaints about the 2004 to 2011 Chevrolet Malibu and the 2007 to 2009 Saturn Aura.

GM has recalled 2005 model Pontiac G6s for the problem and is looking into other model years.

Cabela’s outlook

Cabela’s Inc. said demand for its outdoor gear and sporting goods has been strong at the start of the year, so the company is boosting its first-quarter outlook.

The Sidney, Neb., company now expects first-quarter earnings to be 10 to 15 cents higher than Wall Street expected.

The analysts surveyed by FactSet expected Cabela’s to report first quarter earnings per share of 46 cents on $707.8 million in revenue.

Millner said the sales growth is being seen in most merchandise categories, so revenue at stores open at least a year should increase at least 15 to 20 percent in the quarter.

Merck study continues

Merck & Co. said it is continuing a study of its cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin after an interim review of the data by an outside committee.

Vytorin, with $1.7 billion in sales last year, combines a generic cholesterol drug with Merck’s cholesterol drug Zetia, which generated $2.6 billion in revenue.

Investors have been watching the trial after researchers found in 2008 that Vytorin may not provide a heart benefits.