2016 bakery trends
What new and exciting bakery trends can you look forward to
in the new year? Bakery Category Manager Amy Fouks shares a few of the trends
everyone is talking about for 2016.
Pantone has
announced the colors for 2016 – and this year they chose two: a pale pink (Rose
Quartz) and a pale blue (Serenity). Although those colors aren’t reflected in
many Bakery products, it’s still fun to look ahead at the trends for the coming
year.
Mash-ups: Keeping with the trend over the
last couple years, we continue to see the “mash-ups” of bakery products. Bakers
and Pastry Chefs are particularly enamored with this trend, and the
possibilities are endless. We’ve seen some interesting ones over the last year
and many more to come, I am sure. Keep an eye out around the country for:
Pretz-sants (pretzel croissants), Wafflenuts (waffle donuts), Brookies
(brownie-cookies), Dough-wiches (using donuts as the base for an ice cream
sandwiches) and Baissants (bagel croissants). Fun foods that are familiar with
a twist!
Cuban-inspired: As the political tensions ease
between the U.S. and Cuba, more and more opportunities will arise for tourism
and a curiosity about Cuba is on the horizon. Look for those tropical and
traditional flavors to reemerge. Tres leches cakes, rum flavors in almost
anything, guava, coconut and flans will be popular again.
Gender reveal cakes: Although not a new trend, we
continue to get orders for gender reveal cakes. An expectant couple has the
unborn baby’s gender securely written in an envelope and handed to our cake
decorator. Our decorator creates a cake or cupcakes filled with either pink or
blue icing. At the party, the couple cuts into the cake to discover the baby’s
gender and celebrate with their family. Perhaps this is the way we can
incorporate the 2016 Pantone colors of the year into the bakery!
Natural sweeteners: This is a trend, but it’s a bit
slower to catch on because of all the recipe reformulation involved. As white
sugar and high fructose corn syrup go away, agave, maple syrup, honey and
coconut sugars will make their way in to sweeten our baked goods.
A big new
trend you’ll see in the Lunds & Byerlys bakeries this year will be a
revamped muffin line! We’ve swapped out the artificial flavorings with
all-natural fruit and nuts and generally improved our ingredients across the
board (see the natural sweetener trend above.) You’ll love some of our new
varieties and some of the classics with a new look. Watch out for new mini
muffins with liners and beautiful new packaging, as well as new muffin liners
and packaging for our 4-count muffins, too. Our breakfast loaves will get a new
look and we will be introducing a couple “brand new to the market” items as
well – all made by our own bakers with our own recipes. This will definitely
brighten your spring! We’re very excited to share them with you later in 2016.
Best wishes to you and your families in the new year! Happy
2016!