Whole grains are the hottest trend in sliced bread, with whole wheat edging out white bread in dollar sales for the first time.
Flooded with messages about heart health, fiber intake and the need for omega-3s, more consumers are looking for bread that can taste good and deliver nutrients.
That’s why shopping for sliced bread is increasingly about one of two things: what’s affordable and what seems healthiest. And the breads in the middle of the market seem to be getting squeezed.
The best-performing breads are promoting credentials like “whole grain” and “natural,” sometimes asking consumers to pay more for those loaves. For the 52 weeks ended July 10, wheat-bread sales increased 0.6 percent, to $2.6 billion, while white-bread sales declined 7 percent, to $2.5 billion. White bread is still ahead in volume, but the margin is shrinking. Americans bought 1.5 billion packages of white bread in the past year, a 3 percent decrease, and 1.3 billion packages of wheat bread, a 5 percent increase. Chicago Tribune
