Healthy pizza hits supermarket shelves

Digital journalist

Thursday 4 October 2012

A ground-breaking healthy pizza, invented by a Scottish food company, will go on sale in a leading supermarket for the first time on Friday.

Eat Balanced pizza inventor Donnie Maclean. Picture by Marc Turner.

Scottish shoppers will be able to get their hands on Eat Balanced’s frozen pizza following its official launch at Asda’s store in the Jewel, Edinburgh.

The company is now in talks with a number of other major supermarkets about selling the nutritionally balanced pizzas, which won the best idea award at the 2012 UK food and drink expo, as well as distributors who are keen to launch the product in Europe and America.

The pizza, which is backed by leading nutritional expert professor Mike Lean of Glasgow University, is made using fresh, natural ingredients such as seaweed and red peppers and each provides the body with the right amount of calories, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, salts, sugar, fibre, vitamins and minerals for a nutritionally balanced meal. The innovative meal is already proving popular and has even been added to the diet of the Scottish rugby team after being given the thumbs up by its nutritionist. The nine-inch pizzas, which cost £3 each, will be available in the majority of Asda’s Scottish stores and come with three different toppings; cheese and cherry tomato, ham and pineapple and spicy chicken. Donnie Maclean, founder of Eat Balanced, said: “It feels good to be launching it in Scotland. It’s a great relief to see it hit the shelves as I have been working on it for 18 months. “The pizzas have really captured people’s imaginations. Everyone knows they should be eating a balanced diet but it’s not straight forward. I wanted to make it more straight forward and I thought if I can prove that a nutritionally balanced meal can still be tasty and convenient I’m on to something. “I hope it will revolutionise ready meals. The industry is under a lot of pressure to reduce things like salt, fat and sugar and, with my first range of products, I have been able to achieve it. I want to prove to people that you can have a nutritionally balanced meal that is very tasty and to the industry that it is possible to produce products that can be beneficial to consumers. “I just want people to start enjoying the pizzas and talking about them, if you can have a pizza that is tasty but gives you everything you need, why eat anything else? “We have received lots of compliments about the pizza and we are very excited to be offering it exclusively to Asda shoppers in Scotland.” The new pizzas contain at least 30% of an adult’s recommended daily amount of vitamins and minerals and less than a third of their guideline amount of calories, fat and salt. The company is already preparing for the launch of its next range, three nutritionally balanced curries, which should be available early next year. Donnie, from Glasgow, added: “We have done deals with Asda and other supermarkets are following suit. A lot of other big food service companies are interested and I’m looking at getting into Europe and the states as well. “I am hoping we will go worldwide quickly and that we are going to be a Scottish brand that travels well. “However, I don't want to be known as the pizza man because I am looking for this brand to be associated with achieving a balanced diet. “We have managed to do three nutritionally balanced curries and we have got a lot of other things that we have developed. The professor is adamant that we should be able to do fish and chips but I’m not convinced, we will see if we can do it.” Callum Nicholson, manager of Asda at the Jewel, said: “We’re really pleased to be one of the first stores to sell Eat Balanced pizza. It’s a great product and we are sure it will resonate with our customers who want to feed their families healthier meals which appeal to both young and old.”

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Healthy pizza hits supermarket shelves

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