As more American consumers are embracing Latin flavors and cuisines, the traditional bolillo and telera are gaining importance on the US food scene. For this reason, bakeries, bakery cafes and grocery stores enjoy profitable opportunities to reinvent the sandwich, both for breakfast and dinner, by using freshly baked bolillos and teleras more often as sandwich bread.

Cheese or jalapeño stuffed bolillos continue to gain more popularity. This trend has been growing for almost a decade. But the more recent development involves Hispanic bakers and grocers introducing more choices of stuffed bolillos.

“We make three kinds of stuffed bolillos,” says Fernando Padilla, co-owner of La Nortena Market in Beaverton, Oregon. Their choices include ham with beans, cheese and jalapeño, and cheese filled bolillos. “That’s like a meal on its own,” he adds.

Likewise, Miranda’s Bakery in Woodburn, Oregon, reports that jalapeño and cheese stuffed bolillos are becoming one of their top-selling items, particularly among their growing number of non-Hispanic customers. “People will order them for their entire offices for lunch,” owner Gustavo Miranda says. “Customers really love them.”

As for teleras, Hispanic retailers are wise to create their own sandwich stations and use their own freshly baked teleras as the centerpiece for creative breakfast and lunch sandwich options.

Start with fresh ingredients for flavorful sandwich fillings. Sliced avocados are soaring in popularity at sandwich chains across the US, as evidenced by the huge success of Subway restaurants.

Your store can also experiment with other ingredients. Grilled eggplant tortas are also part of this influential culinary trend.

Peruvian sandwich shops, called sangucherias, are one of the hottest trends this year, according to top chefs in America who are pointing to the proliferation of great sandwich style shops that serve sandwiches with marinated and roasted pork or chicken with Peruvian spices, served in fresh bread with spicy Peruvian sauces inside.

Peru is very trendy at the moment and will develop more and more, according to other restaurant chefs in America. South America kitchens are due to set the trend in 2015, as well as Mexican cuisine with an emphasis on bold flavors.

Croissant Sandwiches

There is a French connection to traditional Hispanic breads like bolillos that traces back to the 19^th century at a time when French bakers shared lessons for making crusty breads with Mexican bakers. This development helped lead to enormous popularity for the bolillo, which much like the French baguette, is crusty on the outside and chewy inside.

But today there is another French staple that is gaining widespread popularity at a growing number of panaderías, including those in Phoenix, Arizona. The French-style croissant has become a widespread hit, presenting panaderías with a wonderful opportunity to increase sales for the breakfast and lunch crowds.

“We sell more of the croissants now,” says Vanessa Rascon, manager of Mercado y Carniceria El Rancho in Mesa, Arizona. “People say they like the salty croissants now better than the cuernitos, which are sweet. Now they ask for cuernito salado because they like the salty bread. Our customers like to use the croissants for sandwiches with cheese or ham.”

A great-tasting croissant can be a wonderful product on its own or used to make sandwiches and other meal options.

Despite the fact that breakfast continues to be the most skipped meal of the day, breakfast has been a bright spot in the foodservice industry in recent years, according to a new report by Technomic.

Consumers’ increasingly fast-paced lifestyles, growing interest in morning fare at nontraditional times and extended all-day breakfast programs are fueling the trend. Lunch and dinner sales may continue to feel the effects.

Among consumers who now purchase breakfast away from home more often than they did a year ago, the majority (60 percent) report cutting back on other daypart purchases as a result.

Marketing breakfast items as ideal for snacks by targeting younger consumers who are likely to order breakfast for between-meal occasions may drive incremental fare between breakfast and dinner, according to the report.