This is a Special Message from Barilla.
Restaurateurs offering better-for-you pastas might shrug and ask, Does it matter? It’s like asking who’s happier with those menu choices, the customer looking for health, taste and value, or the operator concerned about sales, profits and easy preparation? Soaring demand for whole and multi-grained pasta is leaving everyone happy.
The proof is in the climbing consumption. With the economy having its own health issues, retail pasta sales were virtually flat during the year ended July 31, notes Cynthia Harriman, director of food and nutrition strategies for The Whole Grains Council. But she cites Nielsen’s finding that sales of whole-grain pastas jumped 11.4 percent during that time.
It’s no wonder that 11 percent of the pastas now mentioned on restaurant menus are either whole wheat, whole grain or multi-grain, a 600 percent leap in prevalence from four years ago, according to Mintel Menu Insights.
“There is a wholesale embrace,” comments Harriman. “If you look at the history of the health movement, one of the faster and most definite shifts has been the move to whole grains.”
Yet others, including First Lady Michelle Obama, cite better-for-you pasta as a fast-growing force for healthier dining in restaurants.
Mary’s Pizza Shack, an 18-unit chain in northern California, invites patrons to substitute Barilla’s multi-grain PLUS penne for any pasta on the menu. About 20 percent of guests who order pasta now take Mary’s up on the offer, according to Vince Dito, head of food and beverage and purchasing.
Overall, pasta orders have climbed to 50 percent of sales within the pizzerias, and some stores generate as much as 60 percent of their intake from the Italian staple, he says.
One of the drivers for Mary’s, Dito explains, is the use of high-quality pasta, identified on the menu as Barilla. “We wanted to tell the public we’re using one of the best on the market,” he explains. Tabs at the chain average $26.
Quality has also figured heavily into the surging popularity of the Barilla PLUS penne. “Barilla has done a great job with that product,” Dito says. “It looks great, it tastes great, and parents are definitely asking for it because it’s healthier.”
Michele Wilbur, the dietician for Cornell Dining, the foodservice operation of Cornell University, says she appreciates such attributes of PLUS as the Omega 3 oils, the complex carbohydrates, the high fiber content, and the protein that’s provided by legumes, one of the pasta’s ingredients.
Many students appreciate those health attributes as well, she says. Others opt for PLUS because they love pasta and, hey, why not go for the healthier version, all other things being equal? There’s nothing about its appearance or consistency to draw a veto, as some whole wheat pastas might.
“It’s not as grainy, it’s not as dense,” Wilbur explains. Plus it’s closer in appear to semolina pastas. “A lot of students will not go for a brown pasta.”
“There has been a sea change in the taste and quality of whole-grain pasta,” says the Whole Grain Council’s Harriman. “When you look back at what I call the Birkenstock period of whole grains, there were a lot of gnarly products that came on the market. It’s different now.”
Whole-grain pastas have become a way for the health-conscious to get their complex carbohydrates without any compromises in taste, consistency and quality, she says.
“If you provide people with whole-grain choices, they’re going to vote with their forks for the whole grains,” Harriman says.
That reasoning recently prompted the First Lady to urge all restaurants to offer whole-grain pastas for children.
Harriman volunteers, however, that not all whole-grain pastas are the same. “If you try one whole grain pasta, it’s going to taste different from another,” she says. It is not a generic item, she suggests. Brands vary.
Yet foodservice users relish the attractive cost of even a standout brand like Barilla.
“Pasta is an economical choice,” says Wilbur. “If we put pasta in one station, we might be able to put fish in another.”
Still, attractive food costs, or even the low menu prices they afford, are not going to turn patrons heads. “Taste is Number One,” says Mary’s Dito. “If you don’t have taste in a product, people aren’t going to substitute it for something else, no matter what.”
He’s now looking to roll Barilla PLUS onto the children’s menu of Mary’s. “They really nailed it with the taste profile of that product,” he remarks.
Mary’s won’t be alone in offering more whole-grain pasta options on its menu, suggests the Whole Grain Council’s Harriman. “In the world of pasta, you’re going to see more whole grain choices,” she predicts.
