HEINZ SETS DATA ON ANTIOXIDANT IN TOMATO ITEMS

BARBARA MURRAY

NEW YORK -- Heinz this week will release a consumer-education brochure on lycopene that will go to food retailers through Heinz' sales force, Heinz' director of corporate nutrition, Dr. David Young, told SN during a recent luncheon. The 10-page piece includes recipes using canned tomatoes.

Functional foods and how to market them brought Young here last month to tell 140 attendees at an Advertising Club of New York lunch about lycopene, a proven cancer-fighting antioxidant found in abundance in processed tomato products.

J.B. Pratt, owner and chief executive officer of Pratt's Supermarkets, Shawnee, Okla., said this is the time of year when sales of tomato products always increase. "But I don't know if it's due to increased interest in lycopene," Pratt said.

He and a holistic physician have discussed lycopene's role in reducing the risk of prostate cancer during a weekly radio program, but Pratt said the antioxidant's benefits have been overlooked in the supermarket. "We need to go to work on that," he told SN.

Everette Fortner, vice president and managing director for functional foods at Nabisco, Parsippany, N.J., also spoke at the luncheon and brought samples of Knox NutraJoint, a powdered dietary supplement that helps maintain healthy joints and is related to Knox Gelatine.

Ed Slaughter, director of market research for Rodale magazines, Emmaus, Pa., explained the Shopping for Health 1999 study, done jointly by Prevention, a Rodale Press publication, and the Food Marketing Institute, Washington, during the lunch.

"Self care in America is what this is all about," Slaughter said. "Only 24% had ever heard of functional foods, and only 10% had heard of nutraceuticals. But the terms are not the point, self care is the point. Wanting to take control of their own care goes along with the basic demographic shift, the aging of America," he said.

The age group of 45 to 64 is growing by 51% annually, he added. "They start to get age-related health problems, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, adult onset diabetes and osteoporosis.

"And when the head of the household reaches 55, that household starts to spend more money on health care than any other category, including food," Slaughter told the group at the Marriott Marquis hotel here. Not necessarily to cut down on these expenses, but juxtaposed with this information, was a finding that 40% of the survey respondents said they were more likely to treat themselves, rather than asking advice of a health care professional.