KANSAS CITY — Global bakeries are introducing regional specialties from abroad to create excitement in the North American retail market. In many ways, these companies are stealing a page out of the playbook of many US bakeries that brought over their favorite families’ formulas from their homelands.

Lantmannen Unibake USA is testing sweet goods concepts from its European bakeries. The company, which operates a specialty bread bakery in St. Petersburg, Fla., featured a Red Velvet Swirl from its UK bakery that combines its flaky, European-style, laminated Danish dough filled with a cake batter.

“When you eat the product, you get layers of Danish and cake,” said Scott Rosenberg, director of marketing for the company. “Our products are unique and higher quality than the domestically made products that you find in the market. American Danish is laminated at a higher rate, so it ends up being a ‘breadier’ product, and our dough, when you test it with consumers, compares to croissant-style dough.”

From its Denmark bakery, Lantmannen Unibake featured a large-format, shareable Danish in a festive star shape filled with cinnamon and apples with a streusel topping. The freezer-to-oven product can be baked off in 20 minutes. Another example, Premier Foods, St. Albans, UK, introduced its top-selling cake brand, Mr Kipling, this year.

Like many international companies, the initial goal is to establish a brand presence here with the possibility of building a bakery if the volume warrants it.