Milling & Baking News - August 17, 2004 - 10

B U S I N E S S

ConAgra Food Ingredients unveils
ﬁnely textured whole-wheat ﬂour
Continued from Page 1
its customers with the ﬁrst whole-grain
ﬂour that combines preferred taste and
texture with nutrition," said Greg Heckman, president and chief operating ofﬁcer, ConAgra Food Ingredients. "It's
not enough to provide just a nutritious
product, you have to provide a product
that consumers love to eat. Ultragrain
delivers the best of both worlds."
In addition to offering a lighter color
than most whole-grain ﬂours, Ultragrain has a softer, smoother texture with
reduced visibility of bran specks, compared with other whole-wheat ﬂours,
ConAgra Foods said.

ConAgra noted that only 7% of Americans consume three servings of whole
grains daily. The U.S. Department
of Agriculture for many years
has been urging consumers
to increase whole grains
intake. The Department
has suggested even
greater emphasis on
whole grains may be
incorporated into the
2005 edition of the
Dietary Guidelines for
Americans.
Mr. Heckman said Ultragrain
is suited to a wide range of products,

Nutritionist sees 'revolutionary'
potential for new ConAgra ﬂour
SAUSALITO, CALIF. - Ultragrain
White Whole Wheat ﬂour holds the
potential to transform American eating habits, according to Dean Ornish,
founder, president and director of the
Preventive Medicine Research Institute
in Sausalito, Calif.
The celebrated nutritionist and Atkins adversary has been engaged as a
consultant to ConAgra Food Ingredients, the maker of Ultragrain (see story
above, beginning on Page 1).
"I think Ultragrain is a revolutionary
product at a time when people and our
country really need it," said Dr. Ornish,
who also is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San
Francisco. "I think this product can
make a real difference in the health of
our country."
Dr. Ornish is an outspoken advocate
of increased whole grains intake, but
he acknowledged that convincing the

American public to change their eating
habits has been difﬁcult. "Part of what
I've learned in 27 years
of researching diet and
lifestyle is that for many
people, if it doesn't taste
good, they won't eat it," he
said. "It doesn't matter how
good whole grains are for
them."
Still, he said the public
has grown more skeptical
of products made from enriched grains and suggested Ornish
that Ultragrain could help
bring consumers back.
"With Ultragrain, consumers don't
have to sacriﬁce taste for nutrition,"
he said. "That's important, especially
today from a health standpoint, and I'd
imagine from an industry standpoint.
The baking industry is suffering as well
as related industries. From an industry

Panera Bread becomes largest provider
of free Wi-Fi in the United States
ST. LOUIS - With 325 locations in 27
states equipped with free high-speed
broadband wireless Internet access (WiFi), Panera Bread Co. is the largest provider of free Wi-Fi in the United States.
The company said it plans to expand
into a total of 140 to 150 locations this
year and incorporate Wi-Fi in that effort.
According to company research, the
average total on-line time per bakery/
cafe has increased three-fold during the
last 12 months. Internal research indicates that of the hundreds of thousands
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

of customer accesses during the last year,
the average connect time is one hour.
The Wi-Fi networking equipment is
furnished, operated and managed for
Panera Bread by Warwick, R.I.-based
ICOA, Inc., a leading provider of wireless
broadband access in public locations.
"Panera Bread is now the largest
provider of free Wi-Fi Internet access
in the United States," said Ron Shaich,
chairman and chief executive ofﬁcer,
Panera Bread. "We are ﬁrmly committed
to providing free broadband wireless

including bread, bagels, pasta, pizza
dough and pastries.
Whole white wheat bread has been on
the market for several years but have not
signiﬁcantly displaced demand for enriched grains. While the products have
eliminated the bitter taste associated with whole-wheat ﬂour
milled from hard red winter
wheat, the texture of
the white whole-wheat
products
does
not
perfectly match that in
products baked from
enriched white ﬂour.
ConAgra cited a Gallup poll showing that children still prefer white bread
to whole-wheat bread. ConAgra
believes Ultragrain will change that. MBN

perspective, I believe Ultragrain will
bring people back to ﬂour-based foods.
People have been avoiding them because they are getting misinformation
from the Atkins people. This return
will happen none too soon."
Dr. Ornish said he has
tried several products
baked with Ultragrain
ﬂour. "They were delicious," he said.
Asked whether there was
a risk that the nutritional
beneﬁts of whole grains
could be compromised by
the ﬁner granulation that is
part of making Ultragrain,
Dr. Ornish said the question was one that occurred
to him immediately when he was approached about Ultragrain. "I spoke
with (ConAgra scientist) Sam Rao who
reviewed the scientiﬁc studies that
showed that it preserves the nutritional
beneﬁts of whole grains but still has the
taste and texture of white ﬂour," Dr.
Ornish said. MBN

Internet access as a convenient and reliable service to all customers in existing
and emerging markets and remain on
an aggressive build-out schedule of 375
locations by calendar year-end and 500
locations in the coming 12 months.
"Customer response to the convenience
and reliability of our free Wi-Fi Internet access has greatly exceeded our expectations
and we believe it is positively impacting
our business. Offering free Wi-Fi Internet
access is keeping our customers in our
stores longer - primarily during off-peak
hours - and bringing them back more often, enhancing their experience of Panera
Bread's quick casual environment." MBN
Milling & Baking News, August 17, 2004 / 11

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Milling & Baking News - August 17, 2004

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