• Press Release and Facts Sheets

Bread - a Natural Dietary Source of Vitamin D
Angus Reid Survey reveals American consumers' thoughts on Vitamin D as Lallemand Introduces its bakers yeast naturally rich in vitamin D to the
dieticians of Canada at their association's conference in Moncton today.

Montreal, September 24, A new survey, conducted in the USA by Angus Reid Strategies for Lallemand during the third week of September, reveals that three quarters (76%) of American consumers responding to the 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 milk as the most common food source of vitamin D, followed by yogurt, orange juice and cereals.

This Angus Reid survey of 1,011 persons across the USA offers a peek into Americans 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 (45%), cancer (19%), cardiovascular disease (18%), influenza (11%) and diabetes (10%).
• The most common food source that the respondents associate with vitamin D is milk (72%), followed by yogurt (38%), orange juice (24%) and cereals (19%). Only 10% 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 (78%) and price (77%) followed by natural ingredients (53%) and fiber content (52%). This in turn is followed by 'good with other food' (39%) and vitamin fortified (35%).
• Vitamin fortified (35%) came ahead of low fat (30%) and low sodium (24% ) in the top factors cited as influencing consumers purchasing decisions.
• More than 5 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 (56% to 10%).This correlates well with the fact that over half say 'natural ingredients' are one of the top 5 factors influencing their purchasing decisions.

Helping to satisfy consumers' natural ingredients and vitamin D needs, Lallemand has made all its bakers yeast a natural source of vitamin D. Lallemand/American Yeast, responding to the increasing awareness and scientific studies regarding the benefits of vitamin D, systematically converts part of the natural sterols in the yeast to vitamin D by carefully exposing its yeast to light, still allowing the yeast to keep its leavening and flavour contributions intact.

As of August 20th all Lallemand North American plants are equipped such that all Lallemand yeasts (fresh cream, fresh compressed and instant dried yeast) are now produced with this process making baked goods leavened with Lallemand yeast already naturally richer in vitamin D content, this at no extra cost for the bakeries. For example, in formulas using 1% Lallemand/ Instaferm dry yeast, 3% Lallemand/ Eagle compressed yeast or 5% Lallemand/ American cream yeast, 100 g of bread or baked goods will provide 25 IU or 6.25% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin D in the USA (and 12.5% of the recommended daily intake in Canada). Lallemand also offers a special 'VitaD Plus' instant dried yeast which has more of its natural sterols converted through a longer exposition to light and thus contains especially high levels of vitamin D. With the addition of 'VitaD Plus' yeast, all baked goods can even naturally become "excellent" sources of vitamin D.

"Bread is one of the basic foods consumed daily by most North Americans and yeast is a key ingredient in the production of bread. Lallemand supplies over 25% of yeast used by bakers in North America. 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 is now probably as important a dietary source of vitamin D as milk and we hope this fact will be recognized by dieticians and all consumers" says Lallemand CEO Jean Chagnon.

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 this survey

From September 17-20, 2009, Angus Reid Strategies conducted an online survey among 1,011 randomly selected American adults who are Springboard America 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 United States. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

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