An increasing number of supermarket shoppers are switching from white bread to healthier brown loaves, according to new figures from Kantar Worldpanel.
The data shows that sales of sliced white loaves fell by 1 per cent in 2010, while brown bread sales increased by six per cent and seeded batches by 9 per cent.
Supermarket giant Tesco said this was the first time that white bread – one of Britain’s most staple food products – had ever seen a decline in sales and said the fall was down to a shift in consumers’ attitudes towards healthier diets .
Alex Sillars, Tesco’s bread buyer, said: “The recent sales figures are a significant move and reveal that more shoppers are looking for healthier options when buying bread.
“There is more choice now than ever before and the emergence recently of half brown and half white bread looks like it has been instrumental in encouraging people to make the switch, albeit gradually.
“Not only is there more choice but the quality of wholemeal bread has greatly improved over the last 10 years.”
She added: “In recent years we have increased our range of brown and seeded bread as well as launching other healthier alternatives and while sales of white are still roughly double to that of wholemeal it appears that a change has now begun.”
While the popularity of brown bread is rising, the Kantar Worldpanel data shows that it still only accounts for around 27 per cent of the 12 million loaves sold each day in Britain, compared to 66 per cent (or 7.9 million sales) for white bread .
