Sara Lee Gives White Bread A Makeover

New Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread Delivers White-Bread Taste With Whole-Grain Nutrition

Chicago - It looks like white bread. It smells like white bread. It feels like white bread. Most important, it tastes like white bread.

So what are whole grains doing in it?
Sara Lee, which has introduced nine whole-grain and whole-wheat breads in the past three years, is giving white bread a nutritional makeover while retaining its long-desired taste. Sara Lee's newest innovation is a fresh bread that is so soft, smooth and white that even the most discerning white-bread lovers - children - won't know that it provides a good source of whole grains in every two-slice serving. Call it stealth health.

New Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread hits store shelves today across the country where Sara Lee breads are sold as a first of its kind - a bread made with a blend of enriched flour and whole-grain flour that gives tried-and-true white-bread lovers the taste, texture and appearance of white bread, but delivers whole-grain nutrition. In addition to its white-bread taste, Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread offers:

• A good source of whole grains per serving (two slices), or 8 grams
  
• A good source of fiber - 3 grams per serving, the same amount as 100% whole-wheat bread
  
• A good source of vitamin D and the vitamin B folic acid
  
• An excellent source of calcium
  
• No trans fat or artificial colors or flavors

"Health experts are calling for more whole-grain consumption, but we know more Americans eat white bread than any other kind of packaged bread and won't sacrifice that taste and texture," said Bill Nictakis, president, Sara Lee Food & Beverage's U.S. Fresh Bakery unit. "Using a flour blend to ensure the taste and appearance of white bread is the best way to reach a large cross-section of white-bread consumers and really drive whole-grain consumption. Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread delivers on this delicate proposition: whole-grain benefits, white-bread taste. That's why we say the future of whole grains for many Americans is white bread."

Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread will be available at grocery stores wherever Sara Lee breads are sold. Suggested retail price for the 20-ounce loaf ranges from $1.99 and up, depending on the region of the country.

The company will support the launch of the new Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread through national television and print advertising, the largest coupon distribution ever behind a bread introduction and extensive sampling programs at professional baseball games. The launch support is part of a $30 million marketing campaign for Sara Lee brand fresh products this year.

In Chicago, Sara Lee will hold a taste test event Tuesday at the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier for children to try the new bread with peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

Whole Grains Are Growing, But White Bread Still Rules
Whole-grain bread sales have increased dramatically over the past few years, but more loaves of enriched white sandwich bread are sold than any other kind of bread in America. Of the 5 billion pounds of packaged fresh bread sold in the past year, 47 percent of sales were white bread, the largest-selling segment. The combined segment of enriched wheat and whole-wheat sandwich breads accounted for 27 percent of sales, wide-pan bread loaves, which are particularly popular on the West Coast, accounted for 13 percent of sales, and other breads, such as rye, pumpernickel and cinnamon and raisin breads made up 13 percent of sales, according to Information Resources Inc. data ending June 12, 2005, the latest available. Information Resources tracks and projects bread sales in grocery stores and discount and mass merchandise stores.

The volume of white-bread sales declined 7.2 percent over the past year, while wheat and whole-wheat sandwich breads sales increased 3.4 percent, according to Information Resources data.

In the new MyPyramid Food Guide System, the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls for Americans to balance their consumption of whole-grain foods with enriched-grain foods and to consume at least three 1-ounce servings of whole-grain foods.

Studies have shown that the average American consumes less than 1 serving of whole grains a day, and more alarming, four out of 10 teenagers and children never consume whole grains.

"With the USDA's recent recommendation for Americans to make half their grains whole, many consumers are searching for a way to do just that, but without sacrificing great taste," said Frances Coletta, R.D., Ph.D., director of product nutrition for Sara Lee Food & Beverage. "Consumers are used to thinking about transitional products in the dairy aisle - moving from whole milk to 2% milk to skim milk. Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread can help many consumers make the transition to whole grains without shocking their taste expectations."

Surveys also show that Americans understand the benefits of whole-grain foods, but the largest barriers to consuming more whole-wheat and whole-grain breads are color, texture, softness and taste.

White-bread lovers are very demanding in how their favorite white bread tastes. In developing its new bread, Sara Lee conducted numerous taste-test panels to evaluate different recipes, settling on a flour blend that uses approximately 70 percent enriched flour and 30 percent whole-grain flour. Recipes that used more than 30 percent whole-grain flour showed a significant drop off in consumer acceptance in taste tests.

Marketing Support for Sara Lee Made with Whole Grain White Bread
The launch of Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made with Whole Grain White Bread will be supported by an unprecedented level of marketing initiatives.

In addition to national television and print advertising that begins the week of July 18, Sara Lee will distribute more than 115 million coupons. More than 20 million of the coupons will be for free loaves of bread. Coupons will be circulated via the Internet, as free-standing inserts in Sunday newspapers and in magazine ads. They will also be available in other Sara Lee products, at point of purchase via tear pads, on cash register receipts and at special store-display nutrition brochures. Sara Lee route sales representatives will also hand out coupons to consumers in grocery stores, and instant-redeemable coupons will be available in select markets.

Sara Lee will conduct sampling events at minor league baseball parks around the country this summer and fall. Sara Lee Soft & Smooth sampling will be conducted at more than 250 minor league games at 76 baseball team parks.

SOURCE: Sara Lee Food & Beverage