Regional bakery foods break new ground

  Question: My field merchandisers and I would like to try a bakery product that would be new to our market--something popular elsewhere but untried in our territory. Do you know any in-store operators who have done this?

Answer: Several regions of the country have bakery favorites. San Francisco has aromatic, yeasty sourdough bread; think New Orleans, and you'll think beignets; and Minneapolis-St. Paul boasts a litany of Scandinavian favorites. Many regional bakery foods don't transplant well because of their ethnic or cultural roots. Yet, some have become integrated into new markets largely because bakery operators have diligently pursued their introductions.

Examples include whoopie pies, king cakes and  bolillos. Here's a brief look at each and how an in-store operator has made it  successful.

More bakers making whoopie

Whoopie (whoop pee) pies are not pies but snack "sandwiches": two 3-in. disks of chocolate cake filled with icing—the most popular being vanilla marshmallow cream. For many years, Maine and Pennsylvania both have laid claim to originating whoopie pies. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, the Maine legislature earlier this year voted to approve whoopie pies as the state's official "treat."

Giant Eagle Inc., Pittsburgh, which operates 220 supermarkets with bakeries in four states, many years ago didn't wait for a resolution for whoopie pies' origin and began offering them in its Pennsylvania stores. The company calls the treat "gobs," a term used in several of its markets. Gobs became a big hit.

Whoopie pies go by the name "gobs" in Giant Eagle in-store bakeries.

Nearly 12 years ago, Giant Eagle began expanding west into new markets, notably Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Bakers in Pennsylvania stores had been preparing chocolate cake for gobs from mix. They deposited about 2.5 ozs. batter individually on sheet pans and filled two baked disks with about 1 oz. filling.

The store expansion  taxed the bakeries' labor resources, which required turning to high-quality  frozen cake layers, according to Terry Frederick, bakery development manager  and a 36-year company veteran. Giant Eagle concurrently introduced  two-bite-size mini gobs in 12-count clear clamshell packs.  A wholesale bakery supplies the finished gobs.

A 12-count pack of  mini gobs retails for $4.99, as do four standard-size bogs; both versions are  packed in clear clam shells.

In-stores in the  new markets added gobs with little fanfare, Frederick says, noting that "most  everyone seems to like them. Gobs have worked their way to become a standard  item wherever we've introduced them."

Traditional  chocolate (with vanilla icing) is the top seller, followed by pumpkin, which is  sold only from September into December. The bakeries add cherry during spring,  and banana is offered during summer.

A few years ago,  Giant Eagle's icing supplier suggested adding flavors. The bakeries currently  offer some 15 varieties, including several seasonal flavors. Still, chocolate  and pumpkin sell best.

A new holiday for Dayton, Ohio

Almost 12 years  ago, members of the Greater Cincinnati Retail Bakers Association decided to  look into the sales potential of king cakes, a pre-Lenten sweet dough-based  confection associated with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. "Some of us didn't even  know what king cakes were," recalls Scott Fox, director of bakery operations,  Dorothy Lane Market, a three-unit operator with scratch-mix bakeries in  metropolitan Dayton, Ohio.

Dorothy Lane created a custom design to distinguish its king cake boxes from those of competitors.

The association  retained Mark Atwood, owner of Atwood's Bakery in Alexandria, La., to conduct a  workshop on making and marketing king cakes. Fox and several members  subsequently introduced them for the next pre-Lenten season.

Dorothy Lane first  made sweet dough from scratch, and later teamed with a local wholesale bakery  to purchase frozen, raw sweet dough. "The dough is laminated and is much better  that what we made," Fox says. "To distinguish our king cakes, the supplier uses  cream cheese filling, which makes moist, rich cake."

In-store bakers  thaw and then cut the strips into pieces and allow them to retard overnight in quarter-sheet  cake pans. "The pieces proof nicely, and the pans help hold their shape," Fox  observes. After the dough pieces proof, bakers spot-fill with apple, cherry and  raspberry filling every 3 ins. Baked cakes are iced and then topped with green,  gold and purple sugar.

Marketing king  cakes is a festive event at Dorothy Lane, which includes store personnel  wearing strings of multi-color Mardi Gras beads the week preceding Ash  Wednesday. Front-end king cake displays include related items, such as beignet  mix and other food from New Orleans. The company also promotes king cakes on  Facebook and Twitter and in its Fresh News email newsletter.

"We had two stores  10 years ago and sold about 100 king cakes the first year," Fox recalls. "We  now have three stores and this year moved 1,202 cakes, 344 more than a year  ago. We ran out on Fat Tuesday and could have sold another 250. Each king cake  weighs about 2 lbs., and at $12.99 each, that's a good ring for a few days'  sales."

Larger chain  operators offer low-quality versions of king cakes at cheap prices, he says.  "But, people in Dayton now know what good king cake is and come to us for  high-quality king cakes. As a result, king cakes have made Mardi Gras a new  holiday in Dayton."

Bolillos  become mainstream product

Fresh-baked bolillos likely have drawn customers from commercial bakery aisles, Brookshire officials say.

Instead of  undertaking a product for an annual event, Brookshire Grocery Co., Tyler,  Texas, expanded Hispanic-oriented bolillos into stores serving non-Hispanic  communities within its marketing territory of East Texas, southern Arkansas and  Louisiana.

Nearly two years  ago, the company introduced 2.4-oz. bake-off white bolillos—oblong, crusty  bread loaves—in 10-count bags in a few Brookshire's stores with strong Hispanic  demographics. The stores already offered trés lêches cakes and a line of  Hispanic pastries.

"Early last year,  one of our bakery field merchandisers suggested offering bolillos in a few  stores in non-Hispanic areas," says John Rose, bakery category manager.  "Bolillos caught on quickly, and we rolled them out to all stores. Then, to  really test them, we placed them in a weekly ad, which, of course, required  every bakery to have them. In little more than a year, bolillos went from a few  Hispanic market stores to selling well company-wide."

Ten-count bolillos  are sold in bags for $2.99 each. The company chose the 10-count format because  most bakeries lack bins for bulk sales.

Bolillos sales have  become steady week to week, not affected by holidays, and are incremental  add-on sales, Rose says. "We likely have found new customers, some of whom may  have discovered fresh-baked bolillos as alternatives to sub rolls displayed  along the commercial bread aisles. Bolillos have helped promote a major goal:  to keep people buying fresh-baked product from our bakeries."

Though Giant Eagle, Dorothy Lane and  Brookshire's motives for bringing in regional products differ, the companies  share a common trait. Each has sought to earn repeat customers' business by  offering products with the highest possible quality and at fair prices.

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