Most people love bakeries. The selections of fresh pastries, cookies, tarts, and pies can make your mouth water. That’s why it’s important to find a local bakery that can satisfy your taste buds without emptying your wallet. Unfortunately, it might be hard to find one nearby that has both high quality and low prices. That’s why we decided to review Ingles Bakery to help you decide if it’s worth your time and money.
What Is Ingles Bakery?
Some of the best bakeries are the most accessible ones. Ingles Bakery is a department within Ingles Markets, which is a chain of grocery stores located in the southeastern United States. States that have brick-and-mortar locations include the following:
- Alabama
- Georgia
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Virginia
The company has been around for more than 50 years and is famous for providing brand-name products as well as local and store brands. Along with its deli, floral, and pharmacy departments, Ingles contains a bakery with fresh pastries, cakes, and sweet treats.
Ingles Bakery has delicious apple fritters. They bake daily. But there are many more bakery items that are local favorites, such as banana nut bread and pumpkin pie. The department has an extensive range of choices as well as hundreds of recipes available on its website.
Many people order cakes from Ingles because of the inclusive variety that the bakery provides. Customers can choose the decorations, flavors, and themes that they wish to include on the cake. You can order it online.
Recently, Ingles has introduced artisan bread to the department. Old-world selections such as Tuscan and rosemary garlic are available to purchase. Along with this, some store locations also offer gluten-free products.
Ingles Bakery Cakes Prices
Some bakeries charge a lot of money for their unique tastes and made-from-scratch recipes. Although the costs of pastries, cookies, and other sweet treats can vary, you can be sure that Ingles tries hard to keep prices low. Like all items at Ingles, bakery foods are affordably priced for your benefit. Pricing is one of the many pros of going to a supermarket bakery.
Customized cakes are a little bit more expensive, but they can be worth it. Customers can choose to purchase a quarter, half, or full sheet of cake. For custom-themed cakes, the half sheet costs about $20 less than the full sheet, and $20 more than the quarter sheet. Floral cakes start out at $20 and go up to $10 with each size. Customers can also purchase customized 12-inch cookies for about $10 each. You can pick up your customized cake in three or four days.
Ingles Bakery Cake Models
Specialty cakes are exciting, especially when there are so many choices available. At Ingles, you can choose from hundreds of cakes and add the personalization that you desire. These cakes can be an exciting addition to any party or special occasion.
If you like to buy a cake from Ingles, try ordering online. By using the grocery store’s website, you can easily choose the type of cake, the flavor of icing, and any customizations that you would like. Keep in mind that you can only buy sheet cakes.
Ordering online can be helpful because you can scroll through the types of cakes and see what they look like. The ordering process is simple. However, to avoid any mistakes, be sure that your customizations are easy to understand.
There are many themed cakes to choose from at Ingles Bakery. Although they are more expensive than normal cakes, their customization and imaginative design make up for the cost. Kids especially love the exciting designs and delicious flavors. Some popular choices for special occasions include the following:
Ingles Bakery Cake Ariel & Scuttle
This cake design features Princess Ariel and her friend Scuttle. With a mix of both ocean waves and a beach dotted with beautiful pink flowers and plant life, this might be the perfect design for your child’s birthday party.
Ingles Bakery Cake Tinker Bell in Flower
You can make any occasion magical with Tinker Bell. This cake showcases the lovable fairy in an inventive, flower home with a starry night background. Customers can choose between vanilla whipped icing or traditional buttercream icing.
Ingles Bakery Cake Extreme Soccer
For any kid who loves soccer, this cake is a great choice. This cake shows a soccer ball shooting through the air with fiery speed. This thrilling scene can make your event a little more exciting.
Ingles Bakery Cake Finding Dory
Take your kids on an underwater adventure with this fun cake. The blue sheet cake features Dory swimming through the coral to find her parents.
Ingles Bakery Cake Dinosaur Pals
This exhilarating scene shows two dinosaurs exploring the outskirts of a volcano. Not only will your child enjoy the taste of this cake, but he or she will get two free dinosaur toys to play with after the cake is gone.
With many more themes to choose from, you can be sure that Ingles Bakery can create the perfect cake for your occasion. These types of cakes are perfect for birthday parties, graduation parties, baby showers, and more.
Ingles Bakery Wedding Cakes
Ingles also has many wedding cakes to choose from. They cannot customize this cake, but the variety allows you to choose the one you like the most. Some wedding cakes have two tiers while others have three.
Ingles Cakes Quality
It’s not too hard to find the bakery department at Ingles. The delicious scents of freshly baked bread and delightful desserts waft through the section. With all these wonderful aromas, it makes sense that Ingles Bakery has pretty good quality food items.
Unfortunately, people are sometimes hesitant when it comes to grocery store bakeries. They may feel these bakeries don’t compare with independent businesses, or they may not like the selection of pastries at the store.
It really comes down to quality. Along with many other supermarkets, Ingles has a very high standard. Each morning, new delicious pastries, donuts, and other bakery goods are made, giving customers the satisfaction of purchasing quality items.
But what makes Ingles truly stand out is the quality customer service. Workers try to help customers as much as they can, and bakers create cakes, cookies, and cupcakes as accurately as possible when you order. Many people think that Ingles workers have great values and are willing to help.
Walmart Bakery
Some of Ingles’ competitors also sell baked goods. Wal-Mart is a popular supermarket famous for selling low-priced clothing, hardware, technology, and food. The bakery department doesn’t have a large selection of fresh goods, but it is known for its specialty cakes.
Wal-Mart’s cakes stand out because of the large variety of choices available to customers. Along with a wide selection of themed cakes with Marvel, Disney, or Nickelodeon characters on them, Wal-Mart also offers a lot of customization. Sheet cakes come in four different sizes, round cakes can be double-layered, and cakes can have up to three tiers. Flavors, icings, and fillings can be mixed and matched as well.
However, Wal-Mart cakes must be ordered at the store. Customers pick up or print a form to fill out. Once it is completed, they can take the form to the nearest Wal-Mart location and order the cake. Depending on the customization, cake prices can vary.
The biggest difference between Wal-Mart Bakery and Ingles Bakery is the specialty cakes. Ingles does not give the customer as much freedom when customizing and does not offer round or multi-tier cakes, with the exception of wedding cakes. On the other hand, Ingles has a larger variety of freshly baked desserts and has slightly better quality.
Publix Bakery
Publix Bakery makes many items fresh. Baked goods such as pies and pastries can be found in this department. Publix Bakery is known for the variety of flavors used. If you are looking for delicious tarts, cakes, or bread, this bakery can give you a wide assortment in each category. The supermarket’s website is easy to use, and all of Publix Bakery’s goods can be found online, which can be helpful when searching for the perfect dessert.
The department doesn’t have a big selection of custom-decorated cakes. Mini cakes, sheet cakes, and round cakes are available, but customers don’t have as much freedom when choosing the design or theme of the cake. If you’re looking for a cake with a specific movie or character on it, Publix doesn’t have much to choose from. However, this bakery has some unique cakes with fun designs and flavors.
Publix Bakery competes very closely with Ingles Bakery. Both make delicious pastries and desserts, but Ingles is slightly better at creating personalized cakes.
Ingles Bakery Compared To Other Bakeries
When it comes to comparing grocery stores, Ingles rises above its two main competitors: Wal-Mart and Publix. All three stores sell the same things and fight for customer support. However, Ingles often beats both with its incredibly low prices for staple items, including loaves of bread and gallons of milk. Along with this, Ingles does very well by selling gasoline alongside groceries.
Perhaps the grocery store does well among competitors, but how does Ingles Bakery rank among other local pastry shops? With the combination of quality, fresh food, and low prices, Ingles might be one of the best bakeries near you. It really comes down to the personal factors that affect your decisions, such as your location and pastry preference.
Pros and Cons
For a grocery store bakery, Ingles Bakery has many pros. Most baked goods are made fresh every morning, and the customers really enjoy the taste and smell of the pastries, donuts, and other delicious foods. There is a wide variety to choose from, which keeps the sweet tooth happy. Some locals even think that Ingles’ donuts are better than those from Dunkin’ Donuts or other largely-known donut shops.
Ingles Bakery does specialty cakes as well. Not all supermarkets both create custom orders and have a wide range of daily products. The large variety of personalized cakes, cupcakes, and 12-inch cookies is very helpful when customers have special occasions and events.
On the other hand, Ingles isn’t a large chain of stores, making it only accessible in a few states. Some supermarkets, such as Wal-Mart, dot the entire nation, but Ingles Market is exclusive to the southeastern United States.
Along with that, several employees have complained about working in the bakery department. In some locations, the hours are not flexible, making it hard for workers who have other educational, recreational, or social activities. However, this doesn’t necessarily affect the quality of bakery goods.
Final Thoughts
Ingles Bakery is a great choice for any local customer. Not only is there a large assortment of fresh desserts, but the accessibility factor is also huge. While picking up your weekly groceries, stop by the section and grab a few donuts or cookies for your family. The quality is high, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money on sweets.
Along with having lots of tasty pastries, Ingles Bakery is a perfect place to get your specialty cakes. Whether you are preparing for a birthday party or a family event, you can order a cake customized exactly how you like it. There are many themes to choose from, and ordering online can make the entire process even easier.
Wal-Mart and Publix are big competitors. Wal-Mart excels at specialty cakes while Publix has delicious baked goods. When it comes down to it, Ingles Bakery is the happy medium between the two, but your choice of bakery depends on the situation you are in and your preferences.
Besides the fact that only a few states have access to Ingles Markets, there aren’t really any noticeable cons concerning the department. With that in mind, we give this bakery a high rating of 4.5 out of 5. If you are looking for high-quality sweets nearby, stop at Ingles Bakery.
You can check their official website for more details. You can also check some bakeries on our website articles Safeway Bakery, Schnucks Bakery, and ShopRite Bakery.