Trends
Donut Trends in 2026: What's Actually Happening in Bakeries Right Now
4 September 2026 · 6 min read · Scheduled — not yet published
Every year somebody declares the donut dead and every year the queue at 6am says otherwise. Here is what we are actually seeing change, from behind the counter.
1. Savoury is eating into sweet
The biggest shift is that breakfast pastry no longer has to mean sugar. Kolaches, breakfast sandwiches on sweet dough, anything that puts egg and meat inside a pastry — that whole category is growing. People want one thing that is actually breakfast, not a sweet thing plus a separate breakfast.
We have watched this happen in our own case. The large kolaches go faster than they used to, and they go earlier.
2. The old fashioned came back
For years the decorated donut got all the attention — the tall ones, the cereal on top, the ones built for a photograph. That has cooled. What people ask for now is a well-made cake donut with a crackly glaze and a dense crumb. The old fashioned is the clearest example: nothing on it, nothing hiding behind frosting, so it either works or it does not.
3. Filled donuts are outselling frosted
Lemon-filled, cream, custard, jam. A filled donut is more satisfying than a frosted one at the same price, and customers have worked that out. If you look at what actually clears from a case first, it is increasingly the filled ones.
4. Smaller batches, more often
The economics of donuts have always been brutal — everything unsold at close is a loss. More shops are moving to smaller, more frequent batches rather than one enormous early bake. It means less waste and a fresher case at 10am. It also means the thing you wanted at 2pm may genuinely be gone, which is a trade most customers accept once it is explained.
5. Ordering ahead became normal
Pre-ordering used to be for catering. Now it is regular customers on a weekday, ordering on the way in so their box is waiting. It smooths out the counter, it means people get what they actually wanted, and it is the single easiest change a shop can make.
6. Coffee stopped being an afterthought
A donut shop that pours bad coffee is leaving money on the counter. The move is toward partnering with a local roaster rather than running a commodity brewer. We serve coffee from Perks, a local roaster, at Ogden and St. George.
7. Regional specialities travel
Kolaches from Texas. Dirty soda from Utah. Malasadas from Hawaii. Things that were once strictly local are showing up on menus a long way from home, and customers are curious rather than suspicious. That curiosity is worth a lot to a small shop with something genuinely different in the case.
What has not changed
Fresh still beats clever. A plain glazed donut made this morning will outsell an elaborate one made yesterday, every single time, and no trend has ever dented that.