Bread Beats Cake: FMI Data Shows Bakery's Weekday Play

Seventy-five percent of shoppers "always or sometimes" include bread or rolls in their meal plan, while just 62% give bakery desserts the same consideration. That's the headline finding from FMI — The Food Industry Association's latest Power of In-Store Bakery report, and it flips the usual picture of the in-store bakery as a cake-and-celebration destination.

FMI's verdict on the numbers is blunt: the weekday meal is "bakery's clearest path to frequency." Bread and rolls are what the trade group calls the "everyday anchor," and the department's role keeps widening. Breakfast, portable snacks and meal assembly now all give bakery a place in the weekday routine — not just the party tray. FMI cited insights from cultural intelligence research partner Nichefire for that read.

Why grocers can't coast on the anchor

The audience is there. Over two-thirds of surveyed shoppers said it's "very or somewhat" important for their primary supermarket to have an in-store bakery, and 50% of consumers said they buy bakery items from their main grocery store. Half is a solid base. It's also a leaky one.

Standalone bakeries and coffee shops are pulling spend away from grocers, FMI said, and the leakage runs heaviest among younger consumers. The implication is simple: keep the bakery department evolving, or watch the basket shrink.

What about the cultural assortment gap?

Here's the gap FMI wants grocers to see. More than 60% of shoppers want cultural and ethnic bakery items, but only 44% of surveyed consumers believe their store actually offers them. That shortfall is widest among Generation Z and millennials — precisely the shoppers drifting toward coffee shops.

Before anyone rushes to stock baklava, though, the report prescribes sequencing. Familiar comfort foods — peach cobbler, pound cake, red velvet cake, cornbread — carry higher consumer demand than cultural staples like baklava and tres leches cake, FMI said. So lean into comfort classics first, then layer in cultural items. And because demand is regional and format-led, grocers should close the gap locally rather than by a national playbook.

Does health matter in the bakery aisle?

More than shoppers might admit. FMI found that better-for-you eating trends are shaping everyday bakery purchases. More than three-quarters of surveyed shoppers said health or nutrition influences daily buys like bread and rolls, and nearly 60% said the same for indulgent baked goods. Yes, even the cake gets a nutritional once-over.

More than 70% of shoppers pay attention to at least one nutrition-related callout when buying everyday bakery goods. The top callouts, per FMI:

• Whole grains
• Multi-grains
• Absence of artificial ingredients

Front-of-package claims on bread, in short, are doing real selling work.

The so-what

The Power of In-Store Bakery consumer report draws on a survey of 1,519 U.S. grocery shoppers conducted Aug. 1-8. The takeaway for grocers: the bakery's growth story is weekday, meal-centric and health-labeled — with comfort classics as the entry point and cultural assortment as the retention play for younger shoppers.