‘Healthy’ pizzas hit Asda’s shelves

A YOUNG entrepreneur who has developed a “healthy” ­pizza in conjunction with a Scottish nutrition professor has secured a deal with supermarket giant Asda.

The Eat Balanced pizzas will be on sale in 50 Asda stores in Scotland from later this month with a potential UK-wide rollout depending on sales progress.

Glasgow-based Eat Balanced is also in negotiations with two other retail chains over stocking its products.

The pizzas, which are being manufactured at a food factory near Edinburgh, have been developed in conjunction with Professor Mike Lean, chair of nutrition in the school of medicine at the University of Glasgow.

Donnie MacLean, founder and managing director of the business, said the deal with Asda was a significant step forward for the company which is also developing ready meal products including curries.

“We are talking to other ­supermarket chains and a large pub chain at the moment and are confident of securing further contracts in the coming weeks,” said MacLean.

Eat Balanced is based within the Glasgow business accelerator organisation Entrepreneurial-Spark and recently picked up the Best New Idea award at the UK-wide Food and Drink Expo.

The project to develop the pizzas was supported by a grant from the University of Glasgow’s £2.3 million First Step Award Scheme aimed at stimulating academic and industrial engagement.

Each pizza contains at least 30 per cent of an adult’s recommended daily amount of vitamins and minerals and less than a third of the guideline amount of calories, protein and carbohydrate.

Asda’s Scottish stores will stock three varieties of the Eat Balanced pizzas, cheese and cherry tomato, pineapple and ham and spicy chicken with red peppers and green jalapenos.