Walmart Cakes Might Not Be As Fresh As You'd Think
Purchasing a cake from Walmart's bakery for your next event (or just because) is as easy as ever, because you can order in person or online, and do so weeks in advance. Ordering from the grocery giant's bakery can be less expensive than other cake services, and with grocery prices changing the way we shop, every dollar counts. Walmart also accepts food assistance programs like SNAP for its custom cakes, which makes celebrating with a fun, professional-looking dessert more accessible. However, some shoppers might be feeling a little put off after a viral TikTok video from an individual who identified themselves as a former employee shed some light on Walmart's cake practices.
@kazmarie13 #stitch with @princessannafit and icing comes premade and pre colored in gallon buckets
In the video, the user explains, "Nothing is actually baked in the bakery — it's warmed up from frozen." The TikToker claims that the reason a cake must be ordered ahead of the date it's needed is because of the time it takes for a frozen cake to thaw. Though this may not be the bubble-bursting information that the tone of the video suggests, for some, this may be a revelation.
However, this might not be one of the most shady things about Walmart. The grocery giant decorates an average of 150,000 cakes per week, or 21,500 cakes per day in its U.S. locations. These numbers increase during peak seasons, like graduation time. That's a lot of cakes to decorate, even for a fully staffed bakery department. And freezing the cake isn't actually harming the dessert, either.
Freezing cakes isn't the worst thing Walmart has done
Walmart isn't the only grocery chain to freeze its cakes. Many stores, like Winco and Safeway, also receive cakes frozen to decorate at a later date. (You can even freeze a cake at home to extend the shelf life or make it easier to stack and decorate —just make sure you know how to freeze a cake properly without ruining it.) After a cake has been baked and cooled down entirely, it can be wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in the freezer, where it can be kept for up to four months. Freezing cake also locks in the freshness of the dessert, so when it thaws, it still has a nice flavor.
The high volume of cakes ordered from bakeries like Walmart's means the focus is likely on efficiency as much as it is on customer satisfaction. It's much faster to pull a cake from the freezer to decorate and thaw than it is to bake each cake and wait for it to cool before decorating it. Yes, there are plenty of bakers who are skilled at both making fresh, never-frozen cakes and decorating them with care, but Walmart is a mega-corporation focused on quantity and ease of access rather than winning any baking contests. It might be a bummer for some to learn that Walmart may be selling once-frozen cakes, but for others, it's a way to get Spider-Man on a birthday cake without having to spend hundreds of dollars.