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As Economy Goes Cold, Pasta Comes To A Boil

  • MSNBC/AP, Wednesday, January 21, 2009 11 AM
Kraft has been telling us that macaroni and cheese sales are up for some time; it now looks like happy days are here again for the entire pasta segment. Sales of pasta products in the U.S. -- including frozen and refrigerated pasta, canned pasta, soup mixes and prepared dinners - rose 5% last year to $6.4 billion, according to American Italian Pasta Co., the nation's largest manufacturer of dry pasta.

This is despite the fact that prices at retail rose steeply last year due primarily to commodity price hikes.

"Pasta has been vindicated," says Carol Freysinger, spokeswoman for the National Pasta Association, who admits that pasta consumption had been falling 1% or 2% annually for years because of high-protein diet fads. "There's this renewed vigor, this renewed energy in the pasta companies," she says. "They really got beat up by the low-carb diets, which showed to not be that effective in the long run."

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