Is brown bread the new white

Hovis, the baking giant, has produced a brown bread with the taste, texture and colour of white. The new product is called Best of Both�and contains enough fibre and wheatgerm to be classified as brown bread under trading standards regulations. Refined milling techniques mean the bread is more like a white loaf.

�

Q.� Why don't people just buy white or brown

A.� Market research, compiled for Hovis, suggests that women favour brown bread because of its healthy benefits, but children and many men prefer white. It has taken the company a year of planning and scientific experiments to come up with a satisfying combination of the two.

�

Q.� How is the bread manufactured

A.� Their pioneering technique means that most of the husk, the part which gives the wheatgrain its brown colour, can be discarded without losing the nutrients its contains. Hovis says it has made the new product without using artificial flavourings or bleached flours. It says the new loaf contains four times more wheatgerm and one and a half times more fibre than an average loaf of wholemeal bread. The market was saturated in recent years with 'soft grain' loaves such as Mighty White and Hovis Champion, which were produced by adding wheat grains to white bread to boost its health benefits.

�

Q.� Is wholemeal bread more popular than white

A.� Wholemeal won an increasing share of the market during the 1980s, but white bread too has increased its popularity during the last 10 years. In 1978, sales of wholemeal bread accounted for less than one per cent of bread sales - by 1985 wholemeal had a 17 per cent share of the market, but that figure had fallen to 12 per cent 10 years later.

�

For more food and drink questions and answers, click here

�

By Katharine MacColl