*Statistics*

Data from photographs taken at each nutrition audit and the Mintel GNPD search output were transcribed into a Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet (Microsoft 365 MSO Version 16.0.13426.20306, Redmond, WA, USA) for analysis, and checked for errors by an independent reviewer prior to analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the number and proportion of products that contained whole grain oats and/oat bran, whole grain barley and BARLEYmax® and the number and proportion of products that displayed beta glucan heart health/cholesterol-lowering claims within each category.


**Table 1.** Mintel GNPD search strategy.

## **3. Results**

Between January 2018 and September 2020, 2462 products from seven food categories were collected from Australian nutrition audits, including 769 breads, 543 breakfast cereals, 363 savoury crackers, 337 noodles/pastas, 173 flours, 165 grain-based muesli bars and 112 plant-based milk alternatives.

## *3.1. Australian Market*

A quarter of all food and beverage products were made with whole grain oats and/or oat bran (Table 2), including 78.8% of grain-based muesli bars (*n* = 130), 68% of breakfast cereals (*n* = 369), 9.6% of breads (*n* = 74) and 6.9% of savoury biscuits (*n* = 25). Grain-based muesli bars, breakfast cereals and savoury crackers were made predominantly with rolled oats, while the noodles/pasta products contained added oat fibre.

**Table 2.** Number and proportion of food and beverage products made with whole grain oats and/or oat bran, whole grain barely and BARLEYmax®, per category.


\* Excluding BARLEYmax®.

As shown in Table 2, fewer products contained barley and BARLEYmax® compared to oats (*n* = 195, 14 and 613, respectively). Barley was most commonly found in breads (*n* = 110, 14.3%) as whole grain barley flour or kibbled barley. Seventy-three breakfast cereals (13.4% of subcategory) and a smaller proportion of savoury biscuits, flours, grainbased muesli bars and plant-based milk alternatives contained barley as an ingredient. There were no noodle/pasta products made with barley. BARLEYmax® was found in 14 Australian products overall, most frequently in breakfast cereals, followed by grainbased muesli bars and breads (Table 2).

Table 3 outlines the frequency of beta glucan general and high level health claims in Australia. Across all food and beverage categories examined, only 37 products made a beta glucan health claim (1.5%), and high level health claims were more common than general level health claims. Claims were most often displayed on breakfast cereals (*n* = 32, 5.9% of subcategory). Savoury biscuits, noodles/pasta products and grain-based muesli bars did not display beta glucan health claims. Overall, 84% of all claims were related to oat beta glucan, while the remaining were BARLEYmax® beta glucan claims (16%, *n* = 6). There were no beta glucan claims related to whole grain barley.

**Table 3.** Frequency of beta glucan general and high level health claims on products from seven food and beverage categories in Australia.


## *3.2. Global Market*

Of all products launched in the selected markets, 24% contained whole grain oats and/or oat bran (*n* = 10,763), 2.6% contained whole grain barley (*n* = 1188) and nine products contained BARLEYmax® (Table 4). The United States had the highest proportion of oat-containing products relative to all products launched (31.3%, *n* = 1926), followed by New Zealand (24%, *n* = 541), Canada (23.9%, *n* = 679) and Europe (23.7%, *n* = 7068). A small proportion of food and beverage products in Europe were made with whole grain barley (3%, *n* = 940), while less of 2% of products launched in Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and Indonesia contained whole grain barley. BARLEYmax® was found in a limited number of products from Malaysia and Singapore only (*n* = 6 and 3 products, respectively).

**Table 4.** Food and beverage products launched between January 2018 and September 2020, containing whole grain oats and/or oat bran, whole grain barley and BARLEYmax® and use of beta glucan heart health/cholesterol-lowering health claims in selected markets.


The initial Mintel GNPD search returned a total of 651 products that made at least one cardiovascular functional claim, including 181 products from the United States, 347 from Europe, 24 from Brazil, 38 from Canada, 26 from Indonesia, 17 from Malaysia, 10 from New Zealand and 8 from Singapore. Following a visual examination of all product labels, 248 products were excluded as the claim did not specifically relate to beta glucan and blood cholesterol. Of note, 52.7% (*n* = 68/129) of the excluded products in the United States made a whole grain and heart health claim ('Diets rich in whole grain foods and other plant

foods and low in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol may help reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers'), which does not relate to beta glucan specifically.

As shown in Table 4, a small proportion of products displayed beta glucan cholesterollowering claims on pack labels, indicating that the low usage is not limited to Australia. Europe had by far the greatest number of products that displayed beta glucan claims (*n* = 254), although this only accounted for less than 1% of the total market. In the United States, 52 products made a beta glucan cholesterol-lowering claim, accounting for 0.8% of the US market. Interestingly, the number of products making a whole grain heart health claim, exceeded those making beta glucan claims (*n* = 68 and 52, respectively).

Overall, the majority of claims were made on breakfast cereals (91%, *n* = 365), while a smaller proportion of claims were made on pasta products (*n* = 8), breads (*n* = 7), crackers/biscuits (*n* = 6), wheat- and grain-based snacks (*n* = 5), plant-based milk alternatives (*n* = 3) and cereal bars (*n* = 3), all of which were from the European market.

## **4. Discussion**

A range of whole grain oat and barley products are available in the Australian and global market, from intact grains, and as ingredients in a range of food products including breakfast cereals, grain-based muesli bars and breads. However, relative to the number of products that contain whole grain oats, oat bran and barley, the number of claims related to beta glucan appear to be in limited use with <2% of products carrying a claim. The efficacious daily dose of 3 g beta glucan is provided in 75 g of whole grain oats (minimum 5.5% beta glucan) or 55 g of oat bran (4% beta glucan) [22]. For an average adult, this quantity is likely to be difficult to achieve on a regular basis. Whole grain oats, barley and oat bran were the richest sources of beta glucan [8], until the more recent introduction of BARLEYmax®, a cultivar with naturally higher levels of beta glucan (6.4% *w*/*w*). BARLEYmax® is 40% higher in beta glucan than rolled oats (personal communications with The Healthy Grain), with 3 g of beta glucan provided within a 45 g serving. Given the smaller volume required to achieve the beta glucan daily target, there is an opportunity for greater use of BARLEYmax® in new product development. It should be noted that work is also underway to develop new wheat lines with higher levels of soluble beta glucan [23].

The data suggests there is limited variety and use of whole grain oats and barley in products other than breakfast cereals and grain-based muesli bars. Previous studies have explored the feasibility of incorporating oats and/or barley into products that require further processing such as bread-making [24] and noodles/pasta [25,26], proving that these whole grains can be utilised as a wheat alternative in a range of food products [27]. This innovation would provide an opportunity to extend the use of oats and barley in products for other meal occasions to assist in achieving the efficacious dose of beta glucan more regularly. Innovative products such as oat rice and oat noodles/pasta that are eligible to carry beta glucan cholesterol-lowering health claims are available in parts of Europe and the Asian market [21], although to our knowledge, such products are not ye<sup>t</sup> commercially available in Australia, presenting an opportunity to expand the use of oats and/or barley in other market sectors. However, it is known that the level of processing of beta glucan is critical for its ability to reduce serum cholesterol levels [28–30]. Product innovation should therefore consider use of minimally processed whole grain oats and barley to maintain the food matrix and maximise the beneficial hypocholesteric effects.

Nutrition and health claims have been shown to be helpful in assisting consumers make informed choices and identify healthier food products [31]. Claims also appear to be highly desirable for food industry as evidenced by the increase in product sales following the introduction of a beta glucan heart health claim by Quaker Oats in 1997 [32]. Despite this, the use of beta glucan cholesterol-lowering health claims now appears to be limited, as only 1.5% (*n* = 37) of all Australian products examined carried a claim and just 1–2% of products in other global markets. A possible limitation to the use of beta glucan claims is the serving size required to achieve the beta glucan 1 g dose which may apply to breakfast cereals and the smaller portion grain products (e.g., muesli bars). Furthermore, the additional requirement to pass the NPSC via FSANZ in Australia may place limits on the use of such claims within the snack food category. Greater use of beta glucan health claims may assist in providing consumer awareness of the hypocholesteric benefits of consuming oats and barley, as suggested by Smulders et al. [33] and Ames et al. [27]. Investigation into Australian consumer perceptions of beta glucan cholesterol-lowering claims is an area for future research, using methods utilised in the literature [34,35].

Interestingly, in the United States, the general whole grain heart health claim appeared to be more common than beta glucan related claims although this claim is only available in the US and has been rejected by several other regulatory bodies, FSANZ included. The use of this more general health claim may be more appealing than those relating to beta glucan which is a single food component. The greater use may also relate to perceptions regarding consumer understanding or may simply be aligned with research outcomes for whole grains and CVD. The benefits of regular consumption of whole grain foods are well documented [4,36–39], with every 16 g increase (one serving) associated with a 9% reduction in cardiovascular disease risk [40,41]. In addition to exploring the Australian consumer understanding of beta glucan claims, a comparison to more general whole grain claims would also be of value especially as whole grain claims are growing rapidly, with a 39% increase in the number of products making whole grain claims in Australia in the past 5 years [21].

Furthermore, a recent cost of illness analysis based on the Australian healthcare system reported the governmen<sup>t</sup> could save AUD 717.4 million annually in direct and indirect cost for prevention of CVD if all Australian adults (>20 years) consumed the recommended 48 g whole grain daily target intake (DTI) [42]. Despite the profound benefits for individual health and the Australian healthcare system, current consumption of whole grains is poor, at 21 g/day for adults (19–85 years), less than half of the 48 g DTI [43]. As previously suggested, whole grain oats are well placed to form part of nutritious products for the future [44], and the same applies to barley. This presents a significant opportunity for innovation using Australian whole grains to increase intakes in line with dietary recommendations which may have powerful impacts on individual and population health.

To our knowledge, the present study is the first to comprehensively review the use of whole grain oats/oat bran, whole grain barley and BARLEYmax® in the Australian and global food supply, within a defined range of grain food and beverage categories and examine the frequency of beta glucan cholesterol-lowering claims on pack labels. However, some limitations should be noted. While all efforts were made to capture the Australian market in its entirety, differences may exist between geographic areas. Although the MINTEL GNPD reportedly captures 70–80% of all product launches from over 86 economies globally, products may be missed due to the nature of the data collection processes utilised by this organisation. As the beta glucan content of a product is not included in the nutrition information panel unless a nutrition claim is made on the label, eligibility to make beta glucan cholesterol-lowering claims could not assessed.

## **5. Conclusions**

Australia is thought to be a world leader in the production of high-quality milling oats and barley for the international market. Given the favourability of growing conditions, there is value in expanding the future application and opportunities for whole grain oats and barley. Despite the sheer number of oat and barley products in the global food market, beta glucan health claims were in limited use and were mostly found on breakfast cereals. Manufacturers could consider selection of oat varieties with higher beta glucan content or enriching products with BARLEYmax® so that products are more likely to be eligible to make beta glucan health claims. Furthermore, the success of beta glucan cholesterollowering claims in guiding healthy dietary decisions is dependent on their perception by consumers. Exploring perceptions of beta glucan health claims, and in comparison to

whole grain claims, is warranted to gain insight into consumer understanding and value of claims in an Australian context.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.G. and J.H.; methodology, S.G. and J.H.; formal analysis, J.H.; writing—original draft preparation, J.H. and S.G.; writing—review and editing, S.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding but was supported by the Grains & Legumes Nutrition Council, a not-for-profit charity.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** All data for this study are contained within the article.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors wish to thank the student dietitians from the University of Wollongong, NSW, and University of Newcastle, NSW, who were involved in the Australian data collection as part of their university studies.

**Conflicts of Interest:** J.H. and S.G. are employed by the Grains & Legumes Nutrition Council, a not-for-profit charity.
