Twirling Toward Health

Better-for-you items are growing ever more mainstream.

It may be a venerable supermarket staple, but pasta, in old and new forms alike, still has growth potential.

“Pasta is something that we have never seen a dip in sales,” affirms George Zoitas, CEO of Westside Market NYC, which operates four locations in the Big Apple. “Even with people trying to avoid carbs, it is usually the one item that if someone is going to cheat on a diet, they will choose to do it with pasta.”

Similarly, according to a spokeswoman for Ahold USA’s Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop division, “pasta is an important category with high household penetration and drives traffic in stores.”

The reason for this is at least partly due to personal finances. “The pasta industry saw significant consumption growth when the recession hit in 2008,” explains Carol Freysinger, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Pasta Association (NPA). “People began eating at home more and in a sense rediscovered the economical low-cost benefits of pasta after the low-carb craze. The five basics of pasta — taste, convenience, variety, value and health — are reasons pasta is a perennial favorite for most Americans,” more than 92 percent of whom eat the product in one variety or another.

Although current consumption of pasta “is somewhat flat ” Freysinger insists “there are still growth opportunities especially among family-size households who need ‘value’ meals or baby boomers seeking pasta products that fit within their health goals like weight management heart health or [managing] diabetes.”

Evolving Needs

In particular, NPA has “continued to see demand among consumers for better-for-you pasta products that have a positive taste profile complemented with healthy benefits, such as whole wheat, whole grain, high fiber and vegetable-infused,” notes Freysinger. “Today, healthy pasta products represent 15 percent of [category] dollar sales and 11.6 percent of the unit volume. Of that, 58.5 percent is either whole wheat or whole grain. However, the understanding that pasta in general is an efficient delivery system for healthy foods and is central to a healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean Diet, continues to be a motivator for consumer demand across products.”

As the Stop & Shop spokeswoman observes “Customer needs continue to evolve based on dietary restrictions, as well as health-and-wellness concerns. For example, gluten-free is a small percentage of the pasta category, but we continue to see growth and reach for a consumer that was historically not buying pasta.”

Still for many old-school consumers alternative products, healthy or not, were a bit of a tough sell at first. “Since pasta is such a traditional staple, it took a while for people to embrace these different types but it is now much more accepted,” says Zoitas.

One such item is MagNoodles a line of pastas with “35 grams of whole grain goodness and high fiber and protein from the addition of two ancient whole grains spelt and Kamut ” notes Aileen Magnotto president and founder of the Hermitage Pa.-based namesake brand adding that the noodles “cook and taste more like white pasta than 100 percent whole grain pastas.”

According to Magnotto, “Sampling at the store level is very important” as a way to build trial with consumers, who are almost always “pleasantly surprised,” not only by the taste, but also the texture.

An additional advantage is the inclusion of the Whole Grains Council stamp on the packaging, “to help consumers identify the amount of whole grains in a product that bears the stamp.”

The brand has recently added two new shapes, in response to customer requests. Joining pennette, a smaller version of penne “designed for little fingers” are “shells, made with the same whole grain blend with added vegetables, and rotini, featuring golden milled flaxseed rather than the vegetables,” notes Magnotto.

Longtime players in the category are also capable of meeting today’s more varied consumer health needs. “We have a selection of specialty pasta which includes an excellent assortment of whole wheat, organic, and enriched products with egg, spinach and tricolor pasta,” points out Marco de Ceglie, CEO of New York-based De Cecco USA.

According to de Ceglie, the brand is the uniting factor for merchandising its product. “For us, it is important to showcase De Cecco in the mainstream pasta aisle and with a visible brand block which maximizes the impact of our rich assortment,” he says. “This highlights the key point that premium-quality pasta is mainstream, and not a niche.”

Spurred to action by the burgeoning gluten-free industry, traditional pasta powerhouse Barilla is rolling out four SKUs of gluten-free pasta, produced in a dedicated facility in Italy and made with a combination of non-GMO corn and rice. “We felt it was important to invest in developing a pasta line for the ever-increasing number of people who are adopting gluten-free lifestyles, ensuring that it delivers the taste and texture pasta lovers expect from Barilla,” says Claudio Colzani, CEO of the Barilla Group, in Parma, Italy. Full national availability is slated for early 2014.

The company, whose U.S. headquarters is in Bannockburn, Ill., has additionally introduced a Whole Grain Lasagne variety.

On the private label front, VeggieServe “has added vitamins from real vegetables: beets, spinach, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms,” explains Jack Hasper, VP for sales and marketing at Carrington, N.D.-based Dakota Growers Pasta Co. “The vitamins and disease-fighting antioxidants are retained in the pasta, even after cooking.”

“We had the challenge of developing a whole grain pasta that kids would love to eat,” recounts Hasper of the product’s development. “We knew that the biggest obstacles to children eating whole grain pasta were the dark color and the strong, gritty taste. Our R&D went to work with the Grains for Health Foundation, Northern Crops Institute and North Dakota State University, and we developed a whole grain pasta that is lighter in color and has a fresher, improved taste.”

When it comes to merchandising, the company is “doing more retail-ready cases and POS displays,” he says. “The POS displays are especially effective when launching new better-for-you pasta products that offer nutrition and taste that is better than the national brand.”

Above all, when selling pasta, it’s important to keep in mind that the item “is a meal platform,” as Freysinger describes it. “The best way to merchandise pasta is as part of a healthy pasta meal,” advises Cynthia Harriman, director of food and nutrition strategies at Boston-based Oldways/the Whole Grains Council. “Almost no one eats pasta by itself, which is why it can be such a good vehicle for increasing consumption of foods, like vegetables, beans and fish, that most of us eat too little of. In a healthy pasta meal, pasta partners deliciously with tomato sauce; a wealth of veggies; small amounts of fish, beans or lean meat; and healthy olive oil — all items easy to include in a store display, with a few easy recipe cards.”

Most important, perhaps, is responsiveness to consumers’ requests. “We listen to our customers for what brands they want on shelves,” says Westside Market’s Zoitas, “and if there are any of the alternative types or special shapes they are seeking that we can provide to them.”

“If someone is going to cheat on a diet, they will choose to do it with pasta.”
—George Zoitas, Westside Market NYC

“POS displays are especially effective when launching new better-for-you pasta products.”
—Jack Hasper, Dakota Growers Pasta Co.