Muffins are staples for breakfast, coffee breaks and snacks any time of the day. Consumers look for both traditional favorites as well as new flavors. And, the healthful eating trend is driving the muffin market.

While traditional bran muffins have always been considered healthful, the current trend is to make most muffins more nutritious—with no change in their traditional flavor and texture.

Aunt Millie's Bakeries, Ft. Wayne, Ind., has always prided itself on being on the leading edge when it comes to healthful baking. It sells its own brand of baked and packaged muffins to supermarkets in the South and Midwest.

“Our customers want healthy recipes. They want more whole grain and fiber. Of course, first you must have a good product that tastes great. When you add healthful ingredients, it still must have the same taste and texture the consumer already loves. Our traditional blueberry, coffee cake, chocolate chip and brownie muffins all fit the healthy eating formula while still keeping their original taste and texture,” says J. Bohn Popp, Aunt Millie's vice president of marketing.

To attain the healthful standard, Aunt Millie's turns to some non-traditional muffin ingredients. “Prebiotic fiber doesn't just help in health. It also can help the functionality of the baked product—better baking, better texture and better overall quality. We have been working with different types of fibers and whole grains because they are not all the same. Sustaining sales while increasing healthy eating is the goal,” he adds.

Healthful eating does not have to be boring. For instance, Aunt Millie's has a Halloween promotion for special muffins launching just for the month of October—crazy Halloween characters. They are individually wrapped so they can be used for trick-or-treaters or for parties.

The Kroger Co., Cincinnati, also is filling a demand by adding fiber and experimenting with superfruits, such as a blueberry/cranberry/whole grain combination, a cranberry/pomegranate muffin and an oat/apple variety. All have been well received by consumers.

“One of our plants has worked with a marionberry muffin. The trick is, marionberries are so huge that it's difficult to get very many of them into a muffin. They taste great, though. We offer jumbo muffins as an alternative to ‘normal'-sized ones to accommodate this fruit,” says Joel Payne, Kroger's manager-corporate food technology, bakery.

MGP Ingredients Inc. (MGPI), Atchison, Kan., offers fiber ingredients that address healthful eating for all baked products. The seamless formula integration of this product makes it perfect for adding fiber to cakes and muffins.

“Fiber is top of the list for healthy ingredients. While there are many fiber offerings to choose from, the reason our products stand out is that they are a resistant starch that is basically interchangeable with wheat flour. Because it possesses a low water-holding capacity, this allows easy incorporation into muffin recipes without needing to adjust the ingredients or the baking process,” says Steve Ham, MGPI's corporate director of marketing.

According to Topher Dohl, applications scientist for MGPI, the particle size is identical to wheat. “[Whereas] a cellulose-based fiber holds so much water you are diluting and changing your whole ratio. You lose both the sweetness and saltiness because you are adding so much more water,” he says.

Aside from the resistant starches, some wheat starches provide benefits for cake muffins. “For instance in blueberry muffins, some wheat starches can help suspend the blueberries more uniformly throughout the muffin rather than letting them settle. It also aids the moisture structure throughout the product. It keeps all the sensory properties the same. If the sensory properties are distorted to the consumer, it doesn't matter how healthy it is. They won't buy it more than once,” says Steve Pickman, MGPI vice president of corporate relations.

All companies see a bright future for the muffin category. Bakers are maintaining standard product lines and moving in multiple directions, with custom products, healthful formulations and opening new channels of distribution.

Main Street Gourmet sees the custom product line growing for them. “It is a niche that wasn't even around eight years ago for us. That is where we've seen our strongest growth in the last few years,” says Steve Marks, C.E.O., Main Street, Akron, Ohio.