Global Breads Widen the U.S. Bread Basket

Five global breads have entered the Inception stage of Datassential’s Bread Menu Adoption Cycle, a sign operators are testing global bread formats well ahead of consumer demand.

These new entrants are globally rooted, spanning influences from Central America to Southeast Asia.

Among them are lefse, a thin Norwegian potato flatbread that resembles a crepe; simit, a sesame-crusted bread ring typically sold as street food in Istanbul; and pupusa, a Salvadoran griddled masa cake stuffed with beans, cheese, or pork.

Also new are panettone, a tall, dome-shaped sweet bread from Milan, and banh mi, a short Vietnamese baguette that lends its name to the filled sandwich built on it.

The domestic entry, Boston brown bread, is a molasses-sweetened rye-and-cornmeal loaf that is steamed rather than baked.

Among the six, pupusa is demonstrating the strongest growth. The flatbread is up 50% over the past four years and projected to grow another 43% over the next four, according to Datassential’s Menu Trends.

Most menus carrying pupusa also reference Mexican cuisine, a category that 86% of U.S. consumers already regard as mainstream, according to Datassential’s Global, Redefined report. The largest chain menuing pupusa is Lupe Tortilla, a Mexican casual-dining brand based in Texas, though it also appears across a handful of smaller Latin American chains on the East Coast.

Meanwhile, Datassential’s Next-Gen Global report identifies simit as a global food that over-indexes with Millennials, likening the Turkish sesame ring to a bagel. The same report found that 72% of Millennials want more global options at restaurants near them, a higher share than any other generation.

Panettone’s momentum is showing up in social conversation rather than menu data. The Italian sweet bread, often tied to the holiday season, was among the fastest-rising terms highlighted in Datassential’s Social Listening Quarterly: Q4 2025 report, up 1,418% quarter-over-quarter. Influencers drove much of the buzz with reinterpretations like panettone French toast, alongside bakeries offering the traditional loaf and newer pistachio versions.