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Baking Supply Retail Sales Statistics: Spending and Market Context

A source-grounded look at cake-decoration sales, U.S. household spending on baking needs, and adjacent dessert and cake market figures.

November 12, 2026 7 min read blackboxcake.com Editorial Team

Contents

What baking supply retail sales statistics can show

Baking supply retail sales statistics are difficult to assemble from the available figures because the measures cover different parts of the baking economy. One source reports U.K. retail sales of cake decorations. U.S. government tables measure average household spending in the broader category “baking needs and miscellaneous products.” Other figures describe finished dessert mixes, cakes, and household purchases of cakes and cupcakes. These measures offer useful context, but they are not interchangeable and do not add up to a single estimate of the baking-supply market.

The clearest direct retail figure here is for cake decorations in the United Kingdom. The U.S. spending series offers a longer view of a broad household expenditure category. The finished-food figures help show the scale and trajectory of related products without being mistaken for sales of pans, tools, ingredients, or decorations.

Cake-decorating retail sales in the U.K.

U.K. retail sales of cake decorations totaled £147 million for the 52 weeks ending April 17, 2022. The market update described sales as slightly ahead of pre-pandemic levels. This is a specific measure of cake-decoration retail sales; it should not be read as a total for all baking supplies, nor as a U.S. market estimate. (Renshaw Baking, What’s Happening? Cake Decorating Retail Market Update)

That figure gives a concrete marker for one specialty retail segment. It does not, by itself, reveal how sales were divided among decorating products, how many households bought them, or whether growth came from higher prices, more units, or a shift in product mix. The report’s comparison with pre-pandemic levels is qualitative in the supplied evidence, so it does not support a precise percentage change.

U.S. household spending on baking needs

The Consumer Expenditure Survey reports mean annual expenditure for U.S. consumer units in “Baking needs and miscellaneous products.” The category is broader than baking supplies alone, and the values are average annual spending per consumer unit, not total retail revenue. In the survey tables, the item is marked as a diary item.

YearMean annual expenditureConsumer units reporting expenditure
2018$32.5712.61%
2019$33.8812.65%
2020$40.5913.98%
2021$40.1212.64%
2022$40.46Not stated here

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey table, 2019 table, 2020 table, 2021 table, and 2022 table.

Mean expenditure rose from $32.57 in 2018 to $40.46 in 2022, an increase of about 24% across those endpoints. The path was not a steady annual climb: the mean reached $40.59 in 2020, eased to $40.12 in 2021, then edged up to $40.46 in 2022. The share reporting spending also moved, from roughly 12.6% in 2018 and 2019 to 13.98% in 2020, then back to 12.64% in 2021.

The average and reporting share describe different things. Mean expenditure is an average across all consumer units in the table, while percent reporting indicates how many recorded an expenditure in the category. Neither measure isolates professional buyers, frequent home bakers, or spending on a particular kind of product. The 2022 table supplies the mean cited here, but the dataset does not provide a matching reporting percentage for that year.

A separate BLS summary puts average annual spending in the same broad category at $28 per U.S. consumer unit in 2016. That earlier point can serve as a historical reference, though comparisons across a longer span should be made with care: the category remains broad and the dollar figures are not a dedicated retail-sales series. (BLS, “Average annual expenditures on sweets, flowers, wine, jewelry, and other items in 2016”)

Dessert-mix sales: nearby grocery context

Finished dessert mixes are grocery products, not baking supplies, but their retail sales offer a related view of the market for at-home desserts. U.S. dessert-mix retail sales were reported at $1,938.1 million in 2018, $2,067.6 million in 2020, $2,005.8 million in 2021, and $1,941.4 million in 2022. The source reports a 0.0% compound annual growth rate from 2018 to 2022. Values are in U.S. dollars at a 2021 fixed exchange rate. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sector Trend Analysis – Bakery products in the United States)

The sequence shows that the reported category total was higher in 2020 than in 2018, then declined in each of the next two years. The zero reported CAGR summarizes the endpoints over the full 2018–2022 period; it does not mean sales were unchanged in every intervening year. These figures concern retail sales of finished mixes and should not be used as a proxy for sales of flour, decorating tools, bakeware, or other supplies.

Within the 2022 dessert-mix total, reported brand sales included $340.7 million for Betty Crocker, $325.1 million for Jell-O, $249.7 million for Duncan Hines, and $134.1 million for private label. These are sales values, not market shares expressed as percentages. Together, the four listed entries total $1,049.6 million; the remaining category sales are not represented by these four figures alone. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sector Trend Analysis – Bakery products in the United States)

Finished-cake retail sales in the United States

The same market report places U.S. finished-cake retail sales at $25,816.6 million in 2022. It divides this into $14,622.3 million for unpackaged cakes and $11,194.2 million for packaged cakes. The reported 2018–2022 compound annual growth rates were 6.9% for unpackaged cakes, 5.1% for packaged cakes, and 6.1% for cakes overall. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sector Trend Analysis – Bakery products in the United States)

These figures describe finished products sold at retail, not the materials and equipment used to make them. They can therefore frame the broader commercial setting for baking, while leaving the size of the supply market unanswered. The report also lists $27,129.9 million for 2023, but labels that figure as a forecast. It is not an observed result for 2023 and should be kept separate from the 2022 sales figure. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Sector Trend Analysis – Bakery products in the United States)

Household spending on cakes and cupcakes

BLS consumer-expenditure data provide another adjacent measure: average annual spending per U.S. consumer unit on finished cakes and cupcakes. The average was $38 in 2013, $55 in 2021, $53 in 2022, and $67 in 2023. The reported change was 26.4% from 2022 to 2023 and 76.3% from 2013 to 2023. For comparison within the same 2023 table, average spending on cookies was $91 per consumer unit. (BLS, “Spending on candy, cookies, and cakes in 2023”)

The year-to-year figures show that this household spending measure dipped from 2021 to 2022 before rising in 2023. It tracks consumer-unit expenditure on cakes and cupcakes, not the number of cakes sold, producer revenue, or spending on cake-making supplies. The 26.4% annual increase is notable as a change in the reported average, but it does not identify what drove that change.

Taken together, the available evidence is strongest for a few defined slices: U.K. cake-decoration retail sales, U.S. average household spending in a broad baking-needs category, and related U.S. sales and spending on finished desserts. Each answers a different question. None alone provides a comprehensive estimate of baking supply retail sales across countries, channels, or product types.

Sources

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blackboxcake.com Editorial Team

Editorial team

Independent editorial coverage of cake baking & decorating.

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