bake - December 2016 - PAN38

Sweet Snacks
At El Zócalo Supermarket
in Haines City, Florida, it is
increasingly common for customers
to enjoy a single slice of pan de fiesta
while they sit and enjoy a pastry
with their morning or afternoon
coffee. One type of pan de fiesta
offered by this innovative bakery is
made with milk, corn starch, sugar
and strawberry flavor.
Other popular sweet snacks at
El Zócalo are pastel helado, a coffeeflavored pastry, and quesitos, which
are twisted pastries filled with guava
or cheese in the middle.
A few years ago, bakery sales
at El Zócalo were once driven by
demand from customers of Mexican
heritage, but now that is changing,
according to El Zócalo owner Juan
Tejada says. Over the past three
years, Puerto Rican customers
have become their fastest growing
segment of customers. He estimates
there current mix of customers
range from those of Mexican
origin (60 percent), Caribbean (25
percent, mostly Puerto Rican and
some Cuban) and others from South
America.
All this translates into a surge
in demand for sweet snacks from

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different cultures. "People want to
see more variety," Tejada says.
Alex Tortilleria Restaurant and
Bakery, which opened in Orlando
in 2001, specializes in authentic
sweet breads including orejas and
piedras. Chocoflan is another top
seller, and they offer this product in
single slices inside clear clamshell
containers for convenience.
Alex Honorato, who helps run
the bakery for his family-owned
business, explains that they are
doing more parfaits and pastries to
appeal to grab-and-go shoppers.
One top seller is what they call a
borracho, a parfait that is filled with
pieces of cake, cream and chocolate
shavings with a cherry on top.
In similar fashion, pastries
now represent 25 percent of all
bakery sales at El Panque y la Rosca
Bakery in Bartow, Florida, which has
doubled its overall bakery sales in
the past year.
They specialize in flavorful
turnover pastries that are filled
with an increasingly wide variety
of fillings. For example, guava with
cheese now ranks among their topthree selling turnovers, as well as
apple and coconut. The bakery

also offers a wide mix of fillings for
their traditional empanadas, including
strawberry, pumpkin and pineapple.
Other popular sweet snacks at
El Panque y la Rosca are margarita
cookies with a pecan on top and
cajeta-filled besos.
Joey Quintana, who runs
Acapulco Tropical with her sister,
Ana, in Bradenton, Florida, points
out that migration by Hispanics
into central Florida has grown
rapidly in the past decade. When
her family's business opened in
2005, 80 percent of customers
originally came from Mexico.
Today, half of all their customers
trace their heritages to places such
as Puerto Rico, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Brazil and Venezuela
The current bakery menu
features more than 60 items on a
daily basis, all prepared fresh that
day, and includes Cuban sandwiches
and quesitos, a cheese-filled pastry
popular in Puerto Rico.
INFLUENTIAL SNACKING TRENDS

It's important to know the most
influential food trends in America
because it gives bakeries insight
into what direction sales might be
bake - December 2016

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