The carbohydrate-laden breakfast spread of croissants, cinnamon rolls, muffins, pineapple coffee cake, bagels–and not a slice of bacon in sight–was a fitting start to the day for 100 or so bakers who gathered at a college campus here to vindicate their products in the face of a recent and potent threat: low-carb diets.
As millions of dieters turn to bunless hamburgers, pasta-free lasagna and other low-carb fare to trim their bellies, the economic ripples are widespread.
The popularity of the Atkins and South Beach diets has helped turn the long-respected food pyramid upside down and created sudden winners and losers in the food industry. With protein and fat in and carbohydrates out, some of the largest U.S. food producers are going on the defensive.
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Among them is the $11 billion bread industry, which convened a national summit recently to fend off blame for America’s obesity problem.
“How did the `Mother Teresa’ of food turn into `Rodney Dangerfield’?” asked Robert O. Hirsch, president and chief executive officer of the Illinois-based Baking Industry Suppliers Association during a panel discussion.
The boon for some
To be sure, the diet has been a boon for some industries. Egg, cheese and bacon sales are up. The beef industry, after a generation-long decline, is experiencing a 10 percent turnaround in consumption. The sustained popularity of low-carb diets–apparently more popular among men than many diet fads of the past–has even spawned its own low-carb segment of the food industry, valued as high as $15 billion.
Manufacturers are touting everything from low-carb tortillas to low-carb beer. Brands Inc.’s KFC chain recently pulled television commercials that touted its chicken as low-carb after the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a complaint with the federal government charging that the ads were deceptive.
While fried chicken and beer producers pitching themselves as healthy fare might be laughable to some, the makers of products high in carbohydrates find themselves having to fend off strangely negative perceptions.
At the bread summit, speakers counterattacked bread’s new bad-boy image with devotions of what is good about bread. There was even talk about creating a slogan to return buyers to bread, a foodstuff around for 5,000 years since ancient Egyptians mixed flour, water and wild yeast.
“We need to stop and think about what makes us fat,” said Kent Symms, the owner of Farmer Direct Foods Inc., a Kansas wheat producer. “Is it really bread and carbs, or is it how much we eat and how many all-you-can-eat buffets we have access to?”
Sounding like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, there were personal affirmations from people claiming their devotion to bread as they stood behind massive artistic bread displays created for the occasion by master baking students.
The shame
“Hello, my name is Carolyn and I eat bread,” proclaimed Carolyn O’Neil, a nutritionist and host of public television’s “Cook Off America,” as the crowd erupted in laughter.
Attendees participated in seminars on the nutrition and business of bread.
On the Atkins diet, people can eat as much cheese, eggs, meat and other protein-laden foods as they want but must strictly limit carbs and avoid refined carbs such as white flour. White bread, pasta, potatoes and other carbo-loaded foods are all but prohibited.
The diet has been controversial since the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins, a cardiology specialist in New York, published it in 1972. His theory is that without the sugars that carbohydrates produce for energy, the human body turns instead for fuel to its stored reserves of fat. The finding conflicted with other medical and common knowledge that had long emphasized reducing fats and maintaining a variety of fruits, vegetables and grains in one’s diet. (Atkins died last April at age 72 from head injuries suffered after falling outside his Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in New York City.)
Atkins’ plan began gaining popularity in the mid-1990s. Recent studies helped to validate the diet, which has about 14 million followers. The New England Journal of Medicine reported earlier this year that people on the diet lost twice as much weight in six months than on conventional low-fat diets. It also reported that followers of the Atkins plan reduced their cholesterol, another conclusion that defied earlier wisdom about fat and protein.
Industry concern
The estimated 20 million or more people in the United States following the diet and similar ones such as the low-carb South Beach Diet, Protein Power and one called The Zone constitute roughly 10 percent of the nation’s adults.
But the movement and its influence are sizable enough to have created concern even beyond the bread industry, whose small and large producers alike are scrambling to create low-carb alternatives.
Orange growers in Florida commissioned a survey to address suspicions it has that Atkins contributed to a 2.7 percent drop in juice consumption last year.
“We are asking the question as an industry. Is it possible that low-carb diets are having an impact on the consumption of orange juice?” said Eric Boomhower, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Citrus.
The wheat, tortilla and pasta industries have all held summits and seminars of their own in response to the potential marketing threat.
The North America Millers Association, which represents 46 companies with 95 percent of the nation’s mill capacity, estimates that annual flour consumption dipped last year to 137 pounds per person after peaking at 147 pounds in 1997.
The diet doesn’t pose a major threat to any industry, but the shift of a few percentage points of market share here and there, equating to millions of dollars in sales, has been enough to cause a stir.
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“I haven’t seen a panic out there,” said Kirk O’Donnell of the American Institute of Baking. “They’re not losing 50 percent of sales or closing. But enough people think bread is not good for you, so it’s concerning.”
The history
The last time a diet alternative had as deep of an impact on the food industry was when the fat-free snack craze peaked in 1994, said Harry Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group, a marketing research firm in New York. Snackers shifted to no-fat cookies such as Snack Wells and potato chips with the fat substitute Olestra.
Balzer and others predict that the low-carb phenomenon will follow the same fate as low-fat foods, which sold like gangbusters before stabilizing when people realized they couldn’t eat all they wanted and still drop pounds. But with the influential Baby Boomer generation well into middle age, carrying increased concerns about thickening waistlines, a focus on dieting is apt to remain, experts believe.
“I think it will peak, but I don’t think it will go away,” said Chuck Anderson, vice president of the Perishable Procurement Organization, a division of Ahold USA, the owners of Giant Food Inc. “It’s instant gratification. Americans are looking for the quick way out.”