Is our daily bread latest victim of Atkins diet?
First it was spuds, now Brits are shunning the humble loaf as low-carb craze sweeps nation
By Jenifer Johnston, 03 August 2003
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First it was potatoes, then slimming shakes … now bread manufacturers fear they will become the next victims of the Atkins diet craze.
The Federation of Bakers has told the Sunday Herald that the diet, which works on a low- carbohydrate, high-protein formula to promote weight loss, is already affecting sales of bread in the UK. Bread is banned from the earlier stages of the Atkins regime.
Federation director John White said: “We are concerned about the effect the Atkins diet is having on the amount of bread people are buying.
“If the entire spectrum of low-carbohydrate dieting was run by a company it would be slaughtered by the media – it would be considered very bad practice to suggest that dietary staples such as bread are bad for you.
“The popularity of the Atkins diet, which everyone seems to be on nowadays, has made people question whether they should be eating bread or not. We need to get the message across that bread is not unhealthy .”
The Atkins phenomenon, along with other low-carbohydrate diets, has swept through Britain and the US in the past two years since celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Liz Hurley revealed they owe their figures to eating fewer carbohydrates and more protein.
More than 15 million copies of the Atkins diet book, pioneered by Dr Robert Atkins who died earlier this year, have been sold around the world, and over 50 million Americans have either tried or plan to try the diet.
Since 1997, the amount spent by Brits on bread has risen 5%, but the amount sold has fallen by 3%. The extra spending has been put down to the variety of more expensive speciality products such as bagels and flavoured breads now available .
Research by think-tank IGD, which studies food and grocery trends, also found that 23% of women aged 25 to 33 are cutting down on the amount of carbohydrate they eat because they consider it to be unhealthy.
Bread is not the only staple British food to suffer as dieters change what they put in their shopping baskets.
Last month the British Potato Council announced that it was putting £1million into an education campaign to resolve any “confusion” consumers may have over whether potatoes, effectively banned by Atkins, are healthy or not. Their Fab Not Fad campaign aims to halt the current slump – sales of spuds fell 10% in 2002 and the council believes diets are the main reason for this.
Unilever, which manufactures the SlimFast diet milkshakes, announced last week that the Atkins diet was partly to blame for poor profits in the US in the first half of this year.
The Wheat Foods Council in the US also blamed Atkins for the sharp drop in sales of flour to make bread and pasta – sales have fallen two years in a row, something that has not happened since the 1950s.
Winners from the public shunning of carbohydrates include farmers and butchers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Safeway confirmed to the Sunday Herald that sales of meat products were up this summer, but all the supermarket chains added that demand was seasonal because of the trend for barbecues.
A spokesman from the National Beef Association said: “I would welcome any kind of diet that promotes meat as an essential part of the diet – red meat has the same kind of oils as fish. However, I do think diets like this are a bit faddy – as a major driver of beef sales the Atkins diet is not especially influential.”
However, the biggest winners may be companies which cater to the growing demand for low-carbohydrate foods. On the internet there are over 800 products that are claimed to be low-carb, but they come at premium prices, such as £5.99 for low-carb cake mix and £2.99 for low-carb crisps.
Joyce Edmonds, of Carblife Foods Ltd, said her turnover has doubled since the start of the year as more and more people flock to take up the Atkins regime.
She said: “We started this business two years ago after I opened a support website for people on a low-carb diet . Everyone was desperate to buy low-carb food. In the last year our turnover has doubled and we are now selling about £8000 worth of food a week.
“To be honest, I am waiting for the day the supermarkets cotton on to the huge demand for low-carb foods because the business has had exponential growth and it’s difficult to keep up. If you think back to the 1980s there were hardly any low-fat foods and now there is a full-fat and half-fat version of everything – the day will come when it is the same for carbs.”
But will Atkins aficionados seek out these new products? Annette Agnew, 43, from Glasgow, who has been on and off the Atkins programme since 2001, knows only too well that following its strictures can be an expensive business.
She said: “Low-carb products on the internet are hugely expensive and it is a costly shop when you are buying meat and fish. However, it balances out when you are not spending money on alcohol.
“I really think supermarkets should get in on the act – the diet is so popular now that it will become mainstream, and it would be much easier and cheaper to get certain products from a supermarket rather than online.”
The diet market in Europe is worth over £93bn and last year 230.6 million Europeans attempted a diet – however, only 3.8 million will succeed in keeping off the weight they lose .
"First it was spuds, now Brits are shunning the humble loaf..."
This can only be great for the development of new, cheaper low-carb food.
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