If you've been in the food industry long enough, you know that diets come in and out of fashion. What's popular one day, say, low-carb diets, will be unpopular again soon enough. For every Scarsdale Diet that urges consumers to eat loads of grapefruit, there's a Paleo Diet that urges them to eat a ton of meat.
Food industry executives learn that if they are to cash in on such fad diets, they must respond quickly. They learn that no particular dieting style will last particularly long.
There is, however, one apparent exception to that rule. In recent years the so-called Mediterranean Diet has moved to the front of consumers' minds. That diet - which emphasizes fresh produce, the use of olive oil rather than butter, and the serving of chicken and seafood rather than beef - seems to never fully go out of style.
Then, recently, the Mediterranean Diet seemed to pick up the ultimate endorsement. A group of doctors writing in the Postgraduate Medical Journal said the evidence that the diet is superior to other approaches is overwhelming.
The Mediterranean Diet, they said, may be a better way to fight obesity. They said it might work better than counting calories and statin drugs.
The diet, which is based upon the traditional cuisine of countries such as Spain, Italy, and Greece, urges people to eschew the heavy use of dairy products, but not to avoid fats. It promotes the moderate consumption of poultry and seafood, while falling short of the standards of vegan diets. It's a sort of moderation-in-all-things, nutrition-dense approach to eating that is substantially different from the red meat, butter, and processed foods that dominate the American diet.
The continuing popularity of the Mediterranean Diet, combined with the growing evidence that it represents a wise approach to eating, raises an important question for the North American food industry: who benefits here if we start eating like they do there?
Here's a look at a handful of companies that benefit each time the Mediterranean Diet gains another adherent in the U.S.:
Bertolli
Ask an average person to describe the Mediterranean Diet and he or she will say something like "replace butter with olive oil." And that's not a bad synopsis - olive oil is central to the Mediterranean Diet. That's why whenever there's a study like the recent one in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, food analysts make note of what good news that is for the olive oil industry.
And here in the U.S., ask an average person to name an olive oil brand, and he or whe will likely say Bertolli. That's because while private-label oils lead the American market, Bertolli is the top-selling brand in the U.S.
Dole
Fresh produce is heavily emphasized in the Mediterranean Diet. Supporters of the approach are urged to eat multiple helpings of fruits and vegetables of all sorts.
Here in the States, the produce industry tends to be fractured - there are only a handful of companies that are players across a wide variety of produce types. And only one, Dole Foods, is among the five largest food companies in the country. If you go on the Mediterranean Diet, it's nearly inevitable that you'll wind up buying Dole brands at least some of the time.
High Liner Foods
As fragmented as the produce industry is, it has nothing on the seafood game. Outside of the big tuna brands (Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and StarKist), seafood is dominated by small players on the fresh side and by the well-known brands of global food giants on the frozen side (Nippon Suisan Kaisha's Gorton's and Pinnacle Foods' Van De Kamp's).
But that's been changing in recent years. Some of the bigger companies on the food service supply side, particularly High Liner Foods, have grown even bigger through the acquisition of smaller rivals. In 2010, High Liner was the seventh-largest seafood company in North America. The following year it purchased Icelandic USA and became the fourth-largest seafood provider.
Last year, High Liner bought American Pride. Just weeks ago it bought Atlantic Trading. Today, High Liner is one of the largest processors of frozen fish in North America. And that means that as the Mediterranean Diet gets bigger play among restaurants and other venues, it's High Liner that gains.