Consumers increasingly love sweet breads and pastries filled with all types of delicious fillings, from fruits to savory meats.
Bakeries are taking advantage of this trend by offering filled breads and pastries that include seasonal flavors like strawberry, pumpkin and sweet potato. One simple way to leverage this opportunity is to use Danish dough or puff pastry dough that is already prepared and can be filled with ease using a wide range of options.
Bakeries in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, are enjoying success offering filled pastries, especially in the spring and summer. When cake season peaks at this time of year, it can be challenging to have all the labor you need to keep pace with demand. Labor-saving products offer great value during this production cycle.
El Burrito Mercado in St. Paul, Minnesota, offers a wide variety of filled empanadas, including sweet potato and pumpkin, as well as crispy guava and apple filled pastries.
One of the more popular sweet breads at Super Mercado Loma Bonita, which has four locations in the Twin Cities, is filled with raisins and cream cheese.
El Mexicano Panadería in Minneapolis uses four-ounce puff turnovers to make delicious and eye-appealing guava and cheese and pineapple and cheese turnovers. The bakery also produces signature pambazos that are dusted with flour on top and filled with different kinds of meats and cheeses.
Panadería San Miguel in Minneapolis transitions to offering more puff pastries in the spring and summer, a strategy that helps them sell more products every week.
“Now that cake season is coming up, we start bringing in more puff pastries,” Victorino Romero, owner of Panadería San Miguel, which has worked with BakeMark for 18 years since the bakery first opened. “The thaw, proof and bake puff pastry dough is a very high quality product. This product helps us make sure we are filling the cases during our busy cake season.”
Flavor Trends
As bakeries develop new products that are filled with different flavors, it is important to recognize the latest consumer trends — which flavors are in highest demand. These insights help steer bakeries in the right direction, as to which new products are most likely to have success.
According to Mintel, desserts that are less sweet are gaining popularity in America, a trend that favors bakery products that are filled with more subtly sweet ingredients like guava and mango.
Vegetables are also a rising star on the menus of America’s restaurants. “The No. 1 hottest category on the menu is the vegetable,” says Nancy Kruse, a foodservice expert who compiles an annual foodservice trends report.
Incorporating vegetables like pumpkin, corn and carrots into filled bakery products is a great strategy.
“There are marvelous opportunities to innovate and create new products with vibrant vegetables,” Kruse says. “The halo of health with vegetables gives you permission to be adventurous and innovate.”
