2024 Mince Pie Review;
Toppings and
flavours lead the way in innovation
Explore the latest Mince Pie Christmas Trends on the 2024 Bakery Market, and ideas to inspire 2025 Christmas Production!
Each Christmas, the UK consumes a whopping 800 million mince pies, with North England eating the way!
At Zeelandia UK, as a leading mincemeat supplier, we produce enough of this festive filling to fill nearly 3 million of the pies consumed every year.
In this article, the Zeelandia UK NPD team take a look at some of the new mince pies being launched for Christmas 2024 and discuss how they can inspire your festive product range.
Innovative toppings
Traditional mince pies are made with a shortcrust pastry shell and lid, however, in recent years bakers have been experimenting with new toppings to add texture, flavour and extra indulgence to this popular festive treat.
Every year our NPD team taste tests mince pies available throughout the UK in grocery retail, artisan bakeries and the coffee shop market, eating our way through as many as sixty different recipes.
Our analysis so far has found a range of topping innovations including; soft, sweet frangipane (and chocolate frangipane), melt-in-the-mouth crumble and crunchy Florentine as well as velvety icing topped, which is a favourite of the sweet-toothed.
This meets the consumer demand for crispy/crunchy or creamy textures which they identify with added indulgence (Innova Trends Survey 2024). And for those bakers staying traditional with a pastry lid, a sprinkle of brown sugar on top can still add an extra element of crunchy texture, as well as that warm brown caramelised flavour note that consumers love in the winter months.
Other alternatives to the traditional pastry lid could include; crumbly Viennese, crunchy cinnamon streusel or chopped glace cherries with mixed peel.
An extra layer of luxury
Biscoff Caramel Crunch Mince Pie Recipe, Sainsbury’s Magazine
This year we are also seeing lots of recipes adding a layer of fruit or caramel to complement the rich, fruity mincemeat and broadening the appeal to consumers looking for a sweeter eating experience. Flavour layering plays a key role in many of the retailer mince pies this year with Asda adding fig and honey and a warming whisky back note. Cutter and Squidge meanwhile added mango and yuzu, which should offer great appeal to consumers enjoying these exotic flavours in their favourite cocktails.
As predicted in January Blood Orange has also made an appearance as a complementary flavour to mincemeat this year in the Co-op range with a chocolate frangipane to tie together a trio of favourite festive favours.
John Morley mincemeat from Zeelandia provides the perfect, high-quality mincemeat base with consistent and reliable bake performance to allow you to get creative with additional flavours or toppings to really wow your bakery customers this Christmas.
