Bread is in nearly every basket, and the shopper buying it is changing fast. On the latest episode of Shopper Matters, IGA Senior Vice President of Brand Development Michael La Kier sat down with Bimbo Bakeries USA Senior Director of Sales Jake Huber to unpack what's really happening in one of grocery's most familiar categories.
Huber brings a shopper-first lens to the conversation. He started in customer behavior analytics at dunnhumby, worked in natural and specialty foods brokerage, led sales for several Bay Area startups, and helped scale St Pierre before Grupo Bimbo acquired the brand. Today he leads national sales for Bimbo's in-store bakery, dairy case and natural foods business.
His message for independent grocers is clear: bread isn't a sleepy staple. It's one of the best-ROI categories in the store, and the retailers who move now will win the trip. Watch the interview below or keep reading for highlights.
The easy headline is that shoppers are walking away from bread. Huber says the data tells a different story.
"There's all these headwinds, people are leaving bread, and that's actually not true if you dig into the data," he said. "Your traditional sandwich loaf of white and wheat, yeah, they are definitely declining. But it's being captured in other functional areas."
Those growth areas fall into two buckets:
Even GLP-1 medications aren't stopping bread purchases. "It's just changing what they're looking for," Huber said.
Bimbo sells across food service, the dairy case, in-store bakery, commercial bread, deli and digital channels. That view shows shoppers moving between all of them, and food service becoming a growth engine for fresh departments.
Most stores still run packaged bread and in-store bakery as separate businesses. Huber says the same macro trends drive both, just to different degrees. In-store bakery leans further into artisan, while commercial bread stays more mainstream.
The payoff for connecting them is big. "Bread is the highest trip-driving category. It is in every basket," Huber said. "Executing on bread has an outsized impact on total store KPIs. We would argue that bread is one of the best ROI areas to focus on because it drives those trips and those baskets."
La Kier framed it as a call to action for all trading partners: think holistically about the shopper, not department by department.
La Kier and Huber revisited three shopper trends they discussed at a recent industry convention: freshness and convenience, simple and transparent ingredients, and authentic or globally inspired experiences.
Huber's pick for the biggest driver is authenticity. "Consumers are starved for authenticity," he said. "Globally inspired or authentic experiences are truly driving meaningful repeat purchase and category-driven growth."
Clean label, by contrast, is now expected. Bimbo has committed to removing artificial colors, preservatives and flavors, with Huber saying about 80% of its portfolio will be done in the next few months.
The sweet spot is where the two meet. A naturally leavened sourdough carries a health halo that rides alongside a clean label. "When you've got those two together, that's truly where the magic happens," Huber said.
Costs keep rising, and Huber sees the K-shaped economy playing out on the bread shelf. The mainstream middle is getting squeezed as shoppers trade up to premium and functional loaves or down to value.
Even at higher price points, shoppers want quality or a functional benefit for their money. Huber pointed to protein bread as an example: next to other loaves it's expensive, but next to today's beef prices it may look like a smart way to add protein.
Value shoppers still want brands, too. Huber said Bimbo white bread has been a strong growth engine in distribution without taking away from private label, which has itself moved upstream with good-better-best tiers. And clean label expectations don't disappear at the value end. "Just because this is a value bread, that expectation is still there," he said.
Millennials and Gen Z engage more with brands and trends, and they're reached in digitally native ways. Bimbo now even checks whether AI shopping agents recommend its products. La Kier compared the moment to Tetris with four pieces falling at once: shifting health trends, economics, generations and channels.
Social media is pushing artisan, hand-shaped sourdough and gut health. Food service menus keep feeding meal inspiration. Huber said performance comes from layering three things at once: the right item at the right promotion, digital support through retail media, and an in-store display.
The biggest frequency opportunities span every daypart:
Asked what he wishes every grocer understood about today's bread shopper, Huber didn't hesitate. "It's a sense of urgency on how fast we need to react to this," he said.
He compared it to K-Cups reshaping the coffee aisle: retailers who didn't dedicate space early lost ground fast. That doesn't mean abandoning sandwich bread, which millions of shoppers still buy. It means capturing the growth while defending the core.
"You can always wait for more data," Huber said. "If you start making moves and be an agent within there, you're going to learn more and actually be able to lead a lot faster."
Don't let the bread aisle get left behind. Listen to the full conversation with Jake Huber on Shopper Matters, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform so you never miss an episode packed with shopper insights you can put to work in your store.