Getting white bread over the health hump
That's because the company's Sara Lee Soft & Smooth Made With Whole Grain White Bread is the best-selling sliced bread in the country.
Its success is expanding bread retailing nationally and has earned Sara Lee a 2006 Chicago Innovation Award. It was born in an attempt to appeal to the white bread consumers who shelled out $2.5 billion despite warnings that Americans must eat healthier or die sooner.
Peter Reiner, vice president of marketing for Sara Lee Brands; Ted Zimmer, vice president of the U.S. Fresh Bakery unit, and Andre Biane, vice president of bakery product development, set out to bake a healthy white bread.
"We started realizing these consumers were important because they were really the determining factors of getting into households that were heavy users of bakery products total," Reiner said. "There was a need for a more nutritious product. Why wouldn't consumers want more nutrition if there was no compromise on taste?"
The challenge, though, was finding the right types of grains and the right mix to retain the texture -- got to stick to the roof of your mouth -- that white bread lovers favor.
"What type of grains and how much grain could we build into a product that still delivers the color, taste, flavor and texture of white bread?" asked Biane, also noting the company's 20-some plants had to be able to reproduce the loaves.
Since its July 2005 launch through Oct. 1, the bread has sold 52.6 million 20-ounce loaves, worth $99.7 million at retail, in grocery stores around the country, according to Information Resources, Inc. The next best-selling loaf of bread sold only 33.5 million loaves in the same time frame.
The process, from conception to the market, took about nine months, all while America was into a low-carb craze.
"It was counter-intuitive to what was going on in the market," Reiner said.
Acceptance got help from revamped dietary guidelines that stressed whole grains. Since then, Sara Lee has expanded the concept to breakfast bread, buns and a wide pan bread. Imitators have shown up. Wonder has a whole-grain white bread.
So does Panera Bread.
"Quick-service restaurants have started to bring in whole-grain white bread. Retail usually follows QSRs," not the other way around, Reiner said.
Reiner is used to folks who confess their love of Sara Lee cheesecake and pound cake, but these days, "People have started saying 'I love your bread.' " The name is a mouthful. "Whole grain" had to go into the title. "It was a reassurance that this product was going to taste like a regular white bread," Reiner said.