UK HBC retailer Boots has announced that it plans to introduce a new line of low-carb products – called, appropriately enough, “Locarb” – next year. The line will be made up of some 30 SKUs to begin with, both chilled and non-chilled, and will represent the company’s first entry into the take-home food business.
- KC's View:
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Timing is everything.
We were speaking last week with a CEO of a major regional supermarket chain, and asked how the company was dealing with the reversal of fortunes of the low-carb category. And this CEO replied that it wasn’t difficult because the company “signed the heck out of it when low-carb got hot, but we always had an exit strategy.”
Unlike a lot of other companies, we must point out.
That said, low-carb ain’t dead. The fad may be over, but maybe what needs to be focused on is a more intelligent “carb consciousness” – understanding what they are, and their place in a healthful diet.
The apparent decline in interest in low-carb dieting, while not good news for companies like Atkins Nutritionals, is very good news indeed for other kinds of companies.
The St. Louis Post Dispatch, for example, reports that local companies such as Panera Bread Co., American Italian Pasta Co., and Anheuser-Busch are seeing earnings turnarounds because of the revived interest in consuming carbs (or at least the decline in carb-related guilt).
