• Press Release and Facts Sheets

Bakers visiting IBA (World Bakery Exhibition) in Düsseldorf are told Bread Now an Important Natural Dietary Source of Vitamin D as New Angus Reid survey reveals UK consumers’ thoughts on vitamin D

Düsseldorf, October 3, A new survey, conducted in UK last week by Angus Reid Strategies for Lallemand reveals that 69% of UK consumers (compared with 76% of American respondents in an earlier survey) believe that vitamin D plays a great-to-moderate role in maintaining or improving their health while only 1% believe it plays no role. These same respondents identify cod liver oil as the most common food source of vitamin D, followed by milk, salmon, egg and cereals.

This Angus Reid survey of 2002 persons across the UK offers a peek into their awareness of vitamin D and preferences for bread:

• The most common health benefits that the respondents associate with vitamin D are protection against osteoporosis and fracture risk (32%), cancer (12%), influenza (10%), cardiovascular disease (9%) and Alzheimer’s (7%).
• The most common food source that the respondents associate with vitamin D is cod liver oil (30%), followed by milk (19%), salmon (19%) and egg (18%). Only 7% perceive bread as a source of vitamin D.
• The most important factors influencing consumer’s bread purchasing decisions (factors ranked either 1 through 5 by respondents) were taste (84%) and price (76%) followed by natural ingredients (65%) and fibre content (56%). This in turn is followed by ‘good with other foods’ (40%),’convenience’ (39%), low in fat’ (32%), no sugar added (28%) and low sodium (22%).
• ‘Vitamin fortified’ or the ‘number of vitamins’ was cited as one of the top 5 factors by 17% and 15% of the respondents.
• Fifteen times as many consumers say they would prefer to buy bread that is naturally rich in vitamins as would prefer bread that is fortified with vitamins (65% to 5%).This correlates well with the fact that nearly two thirds say ‘natural ingredients’ are one of the top 5 factors influencing their purchasing decisions.

Lallemand is introducing during this week at IBA its bakers yeast naturally rich in vitamin D. Helping to satisfy consumers’ natural ingredients and vitamin D needs, Lallemand has made all its bakers yeast a natural source of vitamin D and soon plans to do the same worldwide, wherever it operates.

“Bread is one of the basic foods consumed daily by most North Americans, Europeans and South Africans and yeast is a key ingredient in the production of bread. Lallemand supplies over 25% of yeast used by bakers in North America and significant percentages in the most of continental Europe and even higher in South Africa. We believe this simple process improvement has therefore resulted in a significant percentage of all breads and yeast leavened goods becoming new natural sources of vitamin D at a time when the importance of this sunshine vitamin D is being increasingly recognised by health professionals, public health officials and the general public. We hope all bakers and dieticians will help publicize to their consumers and the general public this new natural and vegetarian source of vitamin D. Bread made with our yeast can now probably become as important a dietary source of vitamin D as milk for many adults and we hope this fact will be recognized by dieticians and all consumers” says Lallemand CEO Jean Chagnon.

More details will be given at “Healthier Bread Seminar” to be held on Wednesday at 10 -12 am at Messe Dusseldorf Conference Room 7 CCD, South.

About Lallemand

Lallemand Inc. is a privately held Canadian company specializing in the research, development, production, marketing and distribution of yeast and bacteria. Lallemand has approximately 2,200 employees located in more than 30 countries on all continents. Lallemand/American Yeast operates plants in the US in Memphis and Baltimore and in Montreal, Canada. For more information about Lallemand, please visit www.lallemand.com.

About the surveys

From September 17-21, 23-24, and 30 – October 1, 2009, Angus Reid Strategies conducted online surveys among 1011 Americans, 997 Canadian and 2002 UK adults, randomly selected, who are Springboard America, Canada and UK panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of the US, Canada and the UK (excl. Northern Ireland). Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

Contact: Lallemand Inc. Cilla Ingman +1-514- 522 2133 cingman@lallemand.com