http://www.personalmd.com/news/n1016073150.shtml
Oct 16, 2001 (USA TODAY) - How quickly the nation has forgotten its fanatical fear of fat.
One minute, we're in a tizzy about all things with one extra molecule of fat. Or cholesterol. Or calories. And the next thing you know, fat is back. Way back.
And low fat is out. Way out.
Just 5 years ago, nearly one in three new food products made a low-fat claim. Today, only one in 10 so much as mentions low fat. The multibillion-dollar low-fat and no-fat food sectors that seemed to amass overnight have mostly thinned to grocery store lightweights.
Instead of looking to save a few calories and a few grams of fat, Americans are pigging out like never before. We want more flavor. We want more taste. We want more fat. Experts say this urge for indulgence in fat-filled foods -- and the emotional comfort they can bring -- began long before terrorists turned our lives inside out. For the fourth consecutive year, sales of low-fat products are falling.
''In the 21st century, you can't drink, smoke, take drugs or have sex,'' says futurist Watts Wacker. ''There's only one thing left to do: Eat.''
It took them awhile, but the giant foodmakers finally are figuring that out. Throughout much of the 1990s, they kept pushing low-fat and no-fat products upon us as if these things were a panacea for the Calorie-Challenged Generation. New products are the lifeblood of the food industry. But sales of fat-free ice cream are down nearly 17% this year, reports Nielsen. Sales of low-fat cookies are down 10.8%. And sales of low-fat sausage are off 8.6%.
Responding to the consumer backlash, foodmakers are back to dishing out the fat. Ben & Jerry's is now mixing two kinds of its decadent ice creams into its 2-Twisted line. Frito-Lay is pushing new gourmet chips. And fast-food chain Carl's Jr. has just introduced its biggest-ever burger.
Obviously, this is what consumers want. Consider: More than one in four potatoes eaten at home is consumed in the form of chips, reports NPD Group, a research firm. The $20 billion snack food industry expects sales to rise 6.4% this year. The number of individual ''snacking occasions'' is up 33% since 1988, reports the Snack Food Association. And when the snacking trade group surveyed kids about their favorite pastime during road trips, ''playing games'' barely beat out -- you guessed it -- ''snacking.'' And you can bet it's not on apples.
We may talk the lean talk. But we are walking -- make that waddling -- the fat walk. The days of ''reduced-fat'' snacking aren't dead, but they're in intensive care.
Perhaps no one knows that better than Andrea Ratliff. She can't stomach low-fat anything. She recently bought some Yoplait no-fat yogurt -- and chucked it before finishing the container. She bought some fat-substitute Wow potato chips -- and never finished the bag. She's even got a half-gallon of Edy's Vanilla fat-free ice cream sitting in her freezer -- with just one spoonful eaten out of it. It's been there for a month.
''All you're doing is paying a lot of money for stuff that tastes lousy,'' says Ratliff, who works as a cook at the Children's Place day-care center in Lincoln, Neb. ''The more fat they take out of something, the worse it tastes, and the more it costs.''
She's got company. When the Mintel Group research firm asked consumers what they care most about when buying a cookie, 95% said that taste ranked tops, while only 37% factored in low fat.
At issue: Many consumers have figured out ''that low-fat products don't taste very good,'' says Lynn Dornblaser, editorial director at Mintel's Global New Products Database.
Going on financial diets
Corporate victims are piling up:
* SnackWell's. The division of Nabisco, which made household words of low fat, is but a shell of its former self. Gobs of its products have been dumped, from cheese snacks to pretzels.
SnackWell's revolutionized the low-fat snacking category in 1992 by making low-fat cookies and crackers marketed for their better taste than many similar products.
People ate SnackWell's by the box, ignoring the fact that low-fat goods can still have calories. They thought they could eat as much as they wanted without gaining weight, says Marion Nestle, chairman of the department of nutrition at New York University. ''But people are much better off eating a few Oreos than a box of SnackWell's,'' she says.
Near its peak in 1995, SnackWell's annual sales exceeded $603 million. But for the 52 weeks ending Aug. 12, 2001, sales slid to a comparatively paltry $134 million, reports Information Resources, a research firm that tracks consumer product sales.
So desperate is the brand to find a niche that it recently began marketing sugarless versions of SnackWell's, targeted at people with diabetes.
Nabisco executives declined interviews. In a statement, company spokesman Larry Baumann said, ''While the consumer mind-set regarding fat in one's diet has shifted recently, a significant portion of the population is still interested in fat-free dietary choices.''
* Guiltless Gourmet. The tortilla chip and dip maker, founded in 1989, was on a tear by the mid-1990s. In 1994, annual sales rocketed to $24 million. By last year, annual sales had slipped to under $6 million.
What happened? ''Consumers are fickle,'' says Michael Schall, president and CEO of Manischewitz, which bought the brand a year ago.
But Schall still thinks there's an upscale niche for the brand. To improve taste, the chips have evolved from fat free to low fat. Several years ago, the brand started using only organic ingredients. And the company is looking into making chips from sweet potatoes.
* Frito-Lay. Sales of the snack giant's once highflying line of Wow Chips, made with a fat substitute, have tumbled since they were introduced in 1997. Sales peaked in 1998 at about $318 million. But annualized sales fell to about $163 million for the 52 weeks ending Aug. 12, 2001, reports Information Resources.
Analysts once projected Wow brand's annual sales would top $500 million. While sales are down nearly 20% over the past year, the steady decline stopped about 3 months ago, says Stephen Quinn, general manager in charge of snack foods at Frito-Lay.
This new world of fat has as many winners as losers. In some cases, companies are winning and losing.
Take Frito-Lay. It's making waves at the indulgent end of the fat spectrum. Sales of its Lay's Bistro Gourmet chips are expected to top $100 million this year, says Quinn. And executives are expecting big things for the just-introduced Doritos Extremes -- thicker, crunchier, more highly seasoned chips. Never mind that more flavor often -- but not always -- means more fat and calories.
Ben & Jerry's may have the most convincing fat-is-back story of all.
Five years ago, a fat-free line of sorbet accounted for 12% of Ben & Jerry's sales. But sorbet sales fell so quickly that last year the chain dropped the laggard line from grocery stores -- although it's still sold at some Ben & Jerry's outlets.
For grocers, ''It went from being a priority to get,'' says brand manager David Stever, ''to being a priority to get it out (of the store).''
So why are company executives laughing? Its fatter-than-fat line of premium ice cream is on a tear.
Sales are up 21% this year, says Walt Freeze, chief marketing officer. ''It's been years since we've seen anything like this.''
Leading the charge: the 2-Twisted line, which combines two Ben & Jerry's ice creams in a single carton. Among them is Half Baked, a mixture of Chocolate Fudge Brownie and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Monkey Wrench: banana meets peanut butter cup.
Sam Lu is a Ben & Jerry's junkie. The computer programmer from San Dimas, Calif., figures he puts down about a pint a week of Aloha Macadamia Nut. Eats it right out of the carton, too.
Lu, who works out three times weekly, can't stomach low-fat anything, least of all, low-fat ice cream. ''If you want ice cream, you want ice cream,'' says Lu, ''not some pasty yogurt taste.''
Hot doughnuts now
Executives at Krispy Kreme have no doubt that fat is king. It's not just because the company expects revenue to jump nearly 50% this year compared with last. It's also because of the 6,000 e-mail messages the company receives every month from its ''fans.''
People want to know the recipe for the best-selling glazed doughnuts. (It's a secret.) People want to know when a store will open near them. (Nearly 200 stores now -- and 40 more next year.) But almost no one asks how many calories are in the doughnuts. (Fudge-iced, cream-filled doughnut: 340 calories; 160 from fat).
The typical customer rarely buys one doughnut. Instead, a customer often buys a dozen and takes the box to the office.
''You can become the office hero for about $5,'' says Stanley Parker, senior vice president of marketing.
If not for the nation's souring on all things low fat, there probably would be no Six Dollar Burger.
That's what the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain is calling its newest, sloppiest-ever burger. It's got a half-pound of beef and two slices of cheese. Never mind that one Six Dollar Burger comes loaded with 949 calories -- and 64 grams of fat.
Americans are sick and tired of depriving themselves of good things, says Bob Wisely, executive vice president of marketing at the burger chain. ''It's all about indulgence,'' he says.
Is it ever. In just 6 months, the Six Dollar Burger has become the chain's top-selling burger. One in five customers buys it. But besides its hefty size and gooey ingredients, the Six Dollar Burger has another strategic selling point: It goes for $3.95.
Low-fat Industry Loses Out as Consumers Favor Flavor
, and that means 99% of Low-Fat products are off the food-list for us ??
I can imagine how you feel. Kiddies Birthday Parties are HighCarb Heaven !
Way ~ GO!
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