Crème brûlée doughnuts? Stores with a sweet tooth score
TORONTO — When Rosanne Tripathy and her sister opened their specialty doughnut shop in Calgary more than five years ago, there weren’t many fried-dough slingers selling upscale confections with new-fangled flavours like crème brûlée or s’mores.
“The market was void of anything similar,” said Tripathy, cofounder of Jelly Modern Doughnuts.
Since then, the company has opened a second Calgary shop and operates a food truck, as well as two Toronto outlets — with eyes on Vancouver, Edmonton and Saskatoon for possible future expansion.
But what Tripathy claims on her site is “the country’s original gourmet doughnut bakery café” is now just one among myriad artisanal shops serving up the tasty pastries to Canadians in what has recently become an increasingly crowded field.
The shops include Jimmy’s Minis in Kitchener, which has been making unique doughnuts since Valentine’s Day in 2014.
Last year, Canadians ate more than 521 million doughnuts, according to NPD Group Inc., a market information and advisory service that collects data daily from a panel of 130,000 Canadians on their restaurant-eating habits.
That’s 10 per cent more than the previous year, said Robert Carter, Jelly executive director of food service.
Most of the growth comes from the country’s market leader in doughnuts, iconic Tim Hortons, he said.
But Carter suspects smaller players, like Jelly Modern Doughnuts, have also likely experienced double-digit growth.
He chalks up part of the food item’s rising popularity to something fairly counterintuitive: a widening consumer interest in healthy eating. As people are increasingly drawn to eating higherquality foods with greater health benefits, he said, they’re allowing themselves more leeway for quality sinful snacks, including the doughnut.
Canadians have also scaled back on eating out, especially for fullcourse meals like dinner, Carter added. Instead, they’re choosing to spend their restaurant dollars on breakfast and snacks, he said, meaning more of their money is going toward sweet treats and baked goods.
Yet another boost for the doughnut is our love affair with caffeine. Canadians drink more than three billion cups of java a year, Carter said — and that’s not including home-brewed beans.
“Obviously, the best compliment to that is a baked good,” he said, adding that a strong coffee program is key to not losing market share to other eateries that serve both indulgences.
Susan Hamer, who opened SuzyQ Doughnuts in Ottawa back in February 2012, agrees it’s a perfect match.
Serving up coffee with a doughnut, she said, is part of the country’s culture — although her shop offers a unique twist on the classic pairing by selling a Finnish-inspired doughnut.