Pasta sauce, hold the pasta

Low-carb lifestyles turn spaghetti sauce makers away from spaghetti.
December 29, 2003: 3:17 PM EST



NEW YORK (Reuters) - Even tomato sauce has turned cool to pasta as Americans try to whittle down their waistlines with low-carbohydrate diets.

A new advertising campaign by saucemaker Prego blankets poultry in its signature sauce instead of spaghetti, aimed at an audience hunting for protein to fulfill strict eating regimens like Atkins and the South Beach Diet.

Food industry experts say the campaign is part of a major marketing effort to come from top U.S. food companies, like Prego owner Campbell Soup or Kraft, who will try to align products with the low-carb craze in 2004.

They expect such companies to offer new versions of their products or play up the low-carb qualities of existing brands, just as many seized on the low-fat mania two decades ago.

"Mainstream manufacturers like Campbell's are recognizing that most Americans do not want to be on a low-carb diet, but do want to cut out the amount of junk carbs in their daily menus," said Dean Rotbart, executive editor of the LowCarbiz newsletter.

"I believe there is actually a second industry that is being born right now that I would call a carb-controlled industry," he said.

A new 30-second television commercial from Prego, part of a series of ads to debut with the New Year, opens with a shot of crimson sauce ladled onto sizzling chicken parmesan rather than a plate of pasta, a fixture of spaghetti sauce ads.

Thick with nostalgia and violin music, the spot created by WPP Group's Young & Rubicam agency portrays chicken as part of a traditional meal under their tagline: "Bring something nice to the table. Your family."

"We don't want to turn away on folks who eat pasta. You can't have pasta sauce without pasta, but we want to make sure we are addressing the current trends," Chris Slager, business director at Prego, told Reuters.

Slager said the chicken parmigiana commercial was one of two new spots focusing on the match between tomato sauce and high-protein foods.

Two additional ads will depict pasta meals. Prego doesn't plan a lower-carb line of pasta sauces, which generally use sugars or sweeteners for taste, he said.

Rotbart said as many as 32 million Americans were estimated to be on the Atkins diet or similar programs, which restrict carbohydrate intake to about 40 grams per day.

But food manufacturers are more likely to target a much larger U.S. market -- up to 125 million people -- who are overweight and willing to buy reduced carbohydrate products rather than renounce them altogether, he said.

In the last year, brewer Anheuser-Busch made a lucrative foray into the market with the low-carb Michelob Ultra beer and H.J. Heinz said it planned a low-carb twist on its famed tomato ketchup.

Fast-food chains like the Blimpie's sandwich shops and McDonald's have also tested lower carb menu options.

"If you are in the breakfast cereal business, how long will it be before you have to have a lower-carb 'Special K'? It's inevitable," Rotbart said, referring to Kellogg's cereal for the diet-conscious. "By the time we close out 2004, it will be prevalent."


http://money.cnn.com/2003/12/29/new....reut/index.htm