KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The popular Atkins Diet is apparently having an effect on some companies.
An Overland Park, Kan., milling company manager calls the diet an assault on carbohydrates. From wheat growers to pasta makers, they believe the Atkins approach is to blame for a drop in demand for their products.
"It has affected the pasta industry," said Robin Vinn, manager at the AIPC plant.
Vinn said that the diet has not brought the plant to a halt because the company is still moving its product at a good pace, but for the industry as a whole, pasta isn't moving like it used to.
"It doesn't have the rate of growth it did maybe 10 years ago, where it had double-digit, 10 percent growth. Today it's 2 percent to 4 percent," Vinn said.
The impact is bigger at places where wheat is made into flour.
"The flour-milling industry actually closed 10 percent of its capacity in the U.S.," said Phillip Strongin, CEO of Cereal Food Processors.
The Department of Agriculture said that flour consumption in the United States has plummeted over the last two years to record lows. Like the packaged food on a plant belt, the effects move from one sector to another.
"Basically, we use wheat that's from the farm, which is trucked or railed into facilities like this, and goes into someone else's product, like bread, rolls, buns or something else," Strongin said.
AIPC is concentrating on convenience foods like macaroni and cheese and Hamburger Helper because those still sell well.
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