Skip navigation

Half of Grains Not Yet Whole in Typical Supermarket

The Whole Grains Council, at a conference this week, presented findings it said show a typical supermarket has not yet made half its grain products whole grain — one of the council’s goals.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Whole Grains Council, at a conference here this week, presented findings it said show a typical supermarket has not yet made half its grain products whole grain — one of the council’s goals. Another council goal is to get consumers to “make [at least] half their grains whole."

Surveying categories of grain products on the shelves in a store it deemed typical — a unit of Hannaford Bros. in Dover, N.H. — the council found that only cereal rose above the halfway mark. A full 80.1% of hot cereals and 68.3% of cold cereals qualified as whole grain. Crackers and cookies, however, fell far below the halfway mark, at 20.3% and 6.4%, respectively.

“While the proportion of whole grains varied widely by category of food, we were pleasantly surprised to find that overall whole grain foods made up 34.7% of the grain food products,” said Cynthia Harriman, the Boston-based council’s director of food and nutrition strategies.

Harriman presented the council’s findings during a panel discussion that included representatives of Hannaford Bros. and Stop & Shop/Giant of Landover, Md.

Read More of Today's Headlines