Schulstad Levebrød – a healthy choice for the conscious consumer

The bread series Schulstad Levebrød are tempting more and more Danes to choose bread products high on fibre and wholegrains. The secret behind the successful series is to find alternative ways to create more taste without adding fat, sugar, or salt. 

 For more than 20 years, Danes have been able to buy prepacked rye and wheat bread (buns and sandwich loafs) low on fat and high on fibre and wholegrains under the name Schulstad Levebrød. From the beginning, the bread series was created to satisfy a certain type that was becoming more and more dominant in the Danish consumer landscape. A consumer profile who cares about how they look and feel and therefore choose healthy alternatives to conventional bread, but also a consumer who doesn’t want to compromise on taste when they buy bread in retail.  

 As Trine Søndergaard, Marketing & Innovation Director at Lantmännen Schulstad says, Schulstad Levebrød has been a great success. 

 “In the prepacked bread category Schulstad Levebrød is a strong market leader within the segment of healthy bread. We are happy about that. But the ambition is to drive the segment and our market shares even further, and I think that is possible.” 

 A partnership for better health 
In 2008, The Danish Whole Grain Partnership was established. It is a public-private partnership between the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, the Danish Cancer Society, the Danish Heart Foundation, and the Danish Diabetes Association, as well as several food companies – including Lantmännen Schulstad – retail chains, and industry associations. Together, the partnership works to improve public health by encouraging Danes to eat more wholegrain. 

 “As the largest bread-supplier in Denmark, we have a responsibility for public health.  

We are working with two strategies. The first is to offer a range of products under the sub-brand Schulstad Levebrød with a high wholegrain content, more than 50%. All these products are marked with the wholegrain logo and the keyhole logo. Products with the keyhole symbol contain less fat, sugars, and salt and more dietary fibre than food products of the same type not carrying the symbol,” Trine Søndergaard says. 

 “The second strategy is just as important because we also want to target all the consumers who don’t actively seek healthier products. We want to secretly improve public health by adding a little wholegrain in all our products. Right now, the level is 3%. That is enough to get a health effect, but people will not recognize it.”  

A new star is born 
Most people think that healthier bread products high on fibre and wholegrain also taste “healthy”. And that is not in the positive sense of the word. They also think healthier bread types lack the softness and moisture of conventional bread. 

 “Taste is king. Therefore, it is very understandable that there are general concerns about off-flavors from wholegrains and about the darker color on the products. But we have managed to bake wholegrain products with the same taste as conventional products and with a lighter color. The secret is to use white wheat. It is a special wholegrain variant with less bitter flavor, and it is lighter in color than red wholegrain wheat which is the most common wholegrain wheat,” says Trine Søndergaard. 

 Schulstad Levebrød has just launched what they hope to be the next bestseller: Levebrød Mørk Kerneglød. It is a new rye bread with 11% fibre and 46% wholegrain rich on taste from dark malt extract and roasted malt flour.  

 “I think that the future of healthier bread will be to increase flavor through alternative ingredients such as malt flour. We cannot add more salt because of health concerns, and we cannot add more seeds like sunflower seeds because they are too fat. Levebrød Mørk Kerneglød is our newest attempt to create a product with the right health profile for the modern consumer,” Trine Søndergaard ends. 

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