Flour industry targets the
nutrition trail
May 10,2004
An industry drive to push the
nutritional benefits of flour could lead to increased sales for the £3
billion UK bread market. Farmer’s in the UK last week met with the National
Association of British and Irish Millers (NABIM) to discuss new
opportunities to promote jointly the benefits of British flour.
Brits are turning increasingly to bread, the key use of flour in the UK, to
compliment a healthy diet. According to the Federation of Bakers since the
1990s the British have upped their consumption of breads with added fibre,
parallel to a rise in consumer awareness of the health benefits and the
launch of new varieties onto the market. Volume sales are approximately 2.9
million tonnes, the equivalent of over 9 million large (800g) loaves every
day.
The National Farmer’s Union and the NABIM are looking to use this rise in
awareness to improve the flour market and boost sales.
“There is an opportunity for the food and farming industries to collude on
future campaigns promoting British flour using positive messages concerning
nutrition and education. I look forward to progressing these ideas with the
NFU in coming months,” NABIM director general Alexander Waugh.
The UK bread and morning goods market is worth over £3 billion. The larger
baking companies, such as Rank Hovis, produce 82 per cent of bread sold in
the UK. Instore bakeries (ISBs) within supermarkets produce about 16 per
cent and high street retail bakers produce the rest.
Between 1950 and 1980 bread consumption declined steadily as a result of
changing eating habits and the introduction into the UK of a large variety
of new foods from around the world.
During the 1980s bread sales stabilised and in the early 1990s increased as
diet and health concerns started to drive the market, in particular for
wholegrain/wheat variets.
A recent report from Euromonitor confirms the NFU/NABIM initiative to push
nutritional benefits of flour. According to the Euromonitor research bread,
in theory, shows more potential than other bakery products when it comes to
the burgeoning functional food sector. British functional bread sales
reached $12.1 million in 2003 compared to France’s $0.3 million and
Germany’s $33.1 million. Although the rise in popularity of the low
carbohydrate Atkins diet is expected to impact sales.
Despite a short downward blip in the mid-90s bread sales are once again
stable, says the federation, although the impact of the popular US low
carbohydrate on sales of carbohydrate food products in the US is starting to
be felt in the UK.
In addition, the Euromonitor report suggests that despite the potential in
the functional bread market, to date growth in the sector has not been as
strong as it could have been, with a number of products - breads targeted at
menopausal women or growing children, for example - failing to get off the
ground.
But bread makers are starting to roll out more functional products. Earlier
this year leading UK bread maker Allied Bakeries that holds around a third
of the British bread market, launched a soy-enriched bread this month, said
to lower cholesterol and improve heart health.
According to Francisco Redruello, packaged food analyst at Euromonitor, this
weak performance was exacerbated by the fact that marketing efforts to
communicate the products’ benefits to consumers were only minimal at best –
highlighting the sheer scale of the problem for bakery and snack producers
keen to take advantage of the huge potential of functional products in these
increasingly health-conscious times.
The industry link up announced by the National Farmers Union will have to
tackle this marketing issue in order for the initiative to be successful.
"Both organisations agreed there was scope to work together on future
campaigns to promote British flour using positive messages concerning
nutrition and education," said the industry bodies in a statement.
The NFU added that it ‘shared the view’ that UK policy-makers should be
urged to use positive nutritional messages in the current debate about diet
and lifestyles. ‘Simple facts about basic healthy foodstuffs are often lost
in a maze of commercial diet promotions.’
Fortifying flour with folic acid – recommended for women of child-bearing
age to help prevent neural tube defects - remains the focus of an ongoing
debate in the UK.