Decreasing sales of Atkins products point to a shift in dietary goals

• Now, in what used to be his Low Carb Dietary Center, Alishayev runs a new business - the Gluten Free Center, selling special food for people who can't tolerate gluten because it makes them sick; he figures it's safer to bet on people who will always have a gluten problem than here-today, gone-tomorrow dieters.
• Alishayev said people were no longer buying the food products made by the company linked to the late diet guru Robert Atkins, who sparked the low-carb craze.
• That bodes well for more traditional diet plans such as Weight Watchers which features a diet plan that doesn't count carbs and also offers a modified carb-counting program.
• At Twito Nutrition, a health food store in Elmhurst, Queens, Nissim Twito has been trying to sell Atkins breads, jams, and shake mixes to customers - to no avail.
• "We lost our pants and we're still losing our pants [on Atkins products]," Twito said yesterday.
• Some of the big grocery chains also are seeing the trend away from low-carb diets.
• Peter Hamilton, a spokesman for the Stop & Shop supermarket chain, said: "Without commenting on specific brands or product lines, we're seeing a slowdown in sales of low-carb products across the board as well as a rebound of products that were previously affected by the low-carb regimen, such as bread, crackers and other grain-related products."
• "What we're hearing from people is Weight Watchers is a way of life," said Sharon Levine, marketing director of Weight Watchers of Suffolk Inc. in Deer Park.
• "Despite the fact that sales of the products have dipped a bit since the peak of sales in January ...we still have a solid market share," Wiant said yesterday.