Optimism rising in bread industry

PORTLAND, Maine — Low-carb bread? That's so 2004.

The bread industry, hoping for a comeback after last year's low-carb fad, is telling consumers bread is good for them — especially whole-grain bread.

Bread makers learned from the low-carb craze that they need to market themselves better. So, three weeks after new government guidelines calling for three one-ounce servings of whole grains a day, the industry is starting a campaign touting health benefits.

Industry officials say the trend is in their favor.

"There was an all-out assault on our industry, but people are coming back to bread and are realizing why they loved it in the first place," said Lee Schwebel of Schwebel Baking Co. in Youngstown, Ohio. "Try making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without bread."

Today, the industry will launch a low-carb counterattack pointing to benefits of grains as part of an overall diet. The $3.5 million Grains for Life campaign will be announced in New York and Washington with billboards, posters and dancers.

"The message we're trying to get out is it's the calories, not the carbs," said Lori Sachau of the Wheat Foods Council in Colorado.

Critics contend it was predictable that fickle Americans would eventually tire of the latest diet, but bread industry officials were surprised at how quickly low-carb seemed to fall out of favor. A survey by NPD Group, an independent marketing information company, found the number of American adults on any low-carb diet peaked at 9.1 percent last February and dropped to 3.6 percent by mid-November.

"The path low-carb has taken is not unlike a lot of other stuff except that it burst so fast. It went up very fast. Sometimes when things go up fast, they come down just as fast," said Stan Osman of Interstate Bakeries Corp., maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies.

But that's not to say the nation is about to see a bread boom. Bread sales were flat even before the obsession with the Atkins, South Beach and other carb-limiting diets, and the industry can't make up for the lost ground overnight.

While bread is still a staple for most Americans, they're not eating it as often as they used to, causing a slow decline that has been offset only by a growing population. On average, Americans ate 136 pounds of wheat flour in 2003, a drop of 10 pounds over a three-year period, Sachau said.

In Portland, Stephen Lanzalotta opened his Italian bakery in 2000 with bread accounting for about 80 percent of sales. Business dipped in part because of low-carb diets, and bread now accounts for 20 percent of sales.