KANSAS CITY, MO — As cornerstones of their communities, retail bakeries are often a hub for celebrations of all types. Whether it be for the latest blockbuster hit or the hometown team’s big game, being able to adapt on the fly to help customers in their community get in on the action requires flexibility and ideas on deck.
With the 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) postseason just around the corner, retail bakeries in regions with teams who made it to the playoffs last fall provided their perspective on how they fueled their communities’ team pride and appetites.
Over in Texas, River Oaks Donuts upped their Houston Astros-inspired products when the team moved on to the playoffs.
Elise Alonso, general manager of River Oaks, shared that demand for the donut shop’s baseball-themed offerings aligns with how the team performs throughout the season.
“We make Astros [products] usually at the beginning of the season, and it increases by volume the further along we get,” she said.
The bakery team doubles the production of their specialty donuts when the Astros progress to the playoff stage, a must as customers who swing by for their regular breakfast also purchase the themed products to share with others.
“When they make it to the playoffs, we make about two times as much as we normally do, and we do usually run out,” Elise said.
When the Arizona Diamondbacks made it to the postseason last year, La Purisima Bakery, a 40-year-old family-owned bakery in Glendale, AZ, ramped up production of its D-backs Concha, which is colored to match the baseball team’s retro branding.
Armando Arellano, general manager of La Purisima, shared that as sports fanatics, the bakery is no stranger to products inspired by local teams. In 2021, La Purisima had rolled out some conchas inspired by the Phoenix Suns when the NBA team made it to the finals, and the bakery hasn’t stopped making them since.
“People really seemed to gravitate towards them,” Armando said. “We haven’t stopped making them since, customers can’t get enough of them. When the D-backs made their run, we were like, ‘Why don’t we try doing something for them?’ We’re big sports fanatics and like to support our teams in any way we can.”
After some trial and error, La Purisima landed on the baseball team’s throwback colors, purple and teal, for the D-backs Concha.
The support extends past La Purisima’s customer base all the way to the MLB team, which the bakery recently partnered with to cross-promote the team’s Hispanic Heritage Night.
In Friendswood, TX, Rise Cupcakes’ Astro-inspired goodies were a base hit with customers.
“We open at 10 a.m. and we sold out of these treats within two hours of opening,” said Haley Barnett, owner of Rise Cupcakes. “We also got featured on Fox News for our Astros treats. After that, we were re-baking and decorating all day to try and keep up with demand.”
For retail bakers interested in celebrating some hometown sports pride through specialty products, adaptability is essential, especially in the uncertainty of how a team will perform.
From that influx of customer sales last year, Haley and her team now have the insight to increase the number of products in Rise Cupcakes’ display cases.
“We know now specifically for that occasion, we’d need to prepare more items for the volume we received,” she said.
To meet demand and keep the team from working extra, the River Oaks team increases production on the crowd-favorite specialty donuts and decreases others.
“Because everything we make is made fresh daily, it’s not that difficult,” Elise shared. “The only thing is if they’re in the last game of a series, on that next day, we’ll just communicate with our bakers overnight and say, ‘If the Astros lose tonight, make a bit less.’ Or ‘If the Astros win tonight, this is the number we’re going to make.’”
Armando shared that it takes 24 hours to prep the conchas properly, so as the team is getting closer to another playoff run, the bakery has tripled production on the D-backs Concha.
“When they made the run last year, we definitely had to make more because people would take some to work, the office, school,” he shared. “People wanted to have them everywhere.”
Beyond the baseball diamond, keeping a pulse on social media trends and current events can help draw in customers.
“I would highly recommend following any social trends or popular themes or items of the time. This could be movies, sayings, book releases, holidays, etc.,” Haley said. “There are so many different ways for you to stand out by paying attention to trends and putting your own spin on them.”
With the fate of bakers’ products in the pitchers’ hands, bakery owners need to remain flexible when crafting themed baked goods.
“Just be ready to come up with something quickly,” Elise concluded. “For example, we sell baseball donuts, so if we run out of shapes and we know it’s early, but we didn’t make enough that day, we will take regular white donuts and turn them into baseballs, adapting to whatever the situation may bring and taking something that we already have and theming it.”
