When it comes to creating a successful baked goods program, inspiration is found in the most unlikely places. Just ask Ryan Krebs, director of foodservice for Rutter’s Farm Stores, based in York, Pa.
The annual York Fair, the oldest fair in America, attracts thousands of visitors annually. It was there that Krebs was inspired to create what is now one of Rutter’s most popular baked treats.
“Every time I go to the fair, the longest line is always people waiting to buy funnel cakes,” said Krebs. “One year I thought, ‘Why don’t we give our customers funnel cakes every day?’”
As a result, Rutter’s now sells mountains of crispy funnel cakes that are cooked on demand in the stores’ fryers. These delicacies are not round and flat like the traditional version. Instead, they are shaped much like a French fry.
“They can go into a cup and are very portable,” Krebs said. “We add powdered sugar and offer other toppings like cinnamon, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce and maple syrup. Funnel cakes can be a sweet, indulgent snack or an after-dinner dessert.”
Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, Germans who migrated to Pennsylvania before the 19th century, are credited with inventing the first funnel cakes. Like other nostalgic regional dishes that people associate with home and hearth, funnel cakes were the result of food availability, trade, climate and cooking traditions of the area’s early residents.
Another local treat available from Rutter’s is the whoopie pie, a Pennsylvania Amish tradition of chocolate sponge cake filled with whipped cream. In western Pennsylvania, the popular, hand-held cake is known as a “gob.”
Regional breads and pastries attract local customers to the c-store bakery cases, spurring daily sales.
“Those items are just as successful in other areas, because at the end of the day, they’re delicious,” said Krebs. “They draw us back to our heritage, yet they’re still a saleable item outside our [original] market.”
Rutter’s operates nearly 70 stores in Pennsylvania.
LOCAL PREFERENCES
Regional pastries have been a windfall for many bakeries. In West, Texas, a small town on a major highway between Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin, Slovacek’s whips up hundreds of baked goods daily. This includes the versatile kolache, which arrived in central Texas with Czech immigrants, who settled there in the mid-1800s.
Slovacek’s robust menu features 19 kolaches filled with various fruits or cottage cheese and 19 other versions made with assorted meats.
“We started out as a meat wholesaler and sausage maker,” said Ray Rabroker, general manager of the store. “We sell over 7 million pounds of meat a year to various grocery stores, and we put every type of sausage we make into our kolaches. You can have a kolache with sausages, with sausage and cheese, with sausage and jalapeño or with sauerkraut or pepper jack.”
Patrons can order the “Big Boy” kolache, a three-ounce piece of dough filled with three ounces of meat and topped with a one-ounce slice of cheese.
PORTABILITY COUNTS
When Solvacek’s first opened in 2014, the plan was to feature whole cakes and kolaches in a cold case, but about 75% of Solvacek’s customers are highway travelers stopping for a rest break. The convenience retailer operates a second location in Snook, Texas.
“We found out that for the all the time and effort that goes into making nice cakes, people driving between Dallas and Austin aren’t going to stop half way there to pick up a cake,” said Rabroker. “We’ll make you one if you order two days ahead of time, but we’ve just about phased out of cakes.”
Currently, the store sells single slices of cake and pie packaged in plastic shells that shoppers can take on their journey. They also have their choice of fresh loaves of bread, cookies, strudels, fudge, twists, lemon bars and other items. But kolaches is the offering that draws the most customer traffic.
“We have people who will buy a dozen or three dozen at a time to carry to a party or take home to freeze, but the majority right now are people buying two or three items. They go down the road and eat them while driving,” said Rabroker.
REPEAT BUSINESS
The best way to keep customers returning is to have the products they want.
“Let customers know you’re a destination,” said Sarah Schmansky, director of Fresh Growth and Strategy at Nielsen, the consumer research group. “Have breakfast options available during the early evening rush hours for the next day, including doughnuts, bagels and yogurt parfaits, so consumers don’t have to stop on their way in to work. Ensure a large bakery breakfast display bright and early during the weekend.”
Because baked goods are visual items and often an impulse purchase, glass bakery cases greet Rutter’s customers as soon as they step inside.
“You have to make sure that it’s visible and that customers walk by it,” Krebs said. “People see a doughnut and say, ‘Well, I wasn’t going to get a doughnut but that looks delicious.’ We also make sure that employees are checking the case, pushing things to the front and changing the paper. If six cookies are gone and chocolate is smeared around on the paper, it doesn’t look appealing. So, we stay on top of that.”
Rutter’s offers four varieties of fresh-baked cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and peanut butter, plus a new seasonal flavor every quarter. Customers may purchase cookies in any quantity, but the chain sells pre-packaged trios and locates them throughout the store, including at the counter and near the coffee bar.
“That’s where we get large volume sales,” said Krebs. “People like the three-pack because they can eat one now and another one two hours from now. Cookies are a snacking item, and certainly, the peak time is the morning when people are going to work, but it’s not just a morning grab-and-go item. Customers get them with their lunch or as a dessert item with dinner.”
Sales soar when the aroma of freshly-baked cookies wafts through the store, so Rutter’s cools hot cookies near the counter. “People smell them and sometimes they say, ‘Can you pack them for me right off the rack?’” said Krebs. “Because of our open-kitchen concept, they also see us working, and customers really buy into that.”
Krebs is always on the lookout for new bakery items and researches changes in taste trends. Currently, he is investigating salty-sweet taste profiles. “Chocolate peanut butter is big in our area,” Krebs said.
He also wants Rutter’s diners to have a good selection of desserts. Currently, they can select from cheesecake, cannolis or tiramisu.
“We don’t want to give our customers dinner but let them go across the street for a piece of cake or pie because we don’t have a full offering beyond cookies,” said Krebs. “People in our market still have a sweet tooth.”