Panko is coarse, jagged, crustless crumb that fries lighter and stays crunchy far longer than the fine dust in a canister. It's a genuinely thin shelf, and we'll say so: the US panko aisle is almost entirely one or two conglomerate labels. The exception is the American family that built the first panko plant in the country and still runs it.
Published July 2026 · Updated 7 Jul 2026
Gary Kawaguchi and his father Masashi (founder of Mrs. Friday's) built the first panko plant in the United States after their imported panko took off as a seafood coating in the 1980s. They still bake and shatter the bread into coarse, spiky flakes at their plant on the edge of Little Tokyo in downtown LA, in large-flake, all-purpose, and seasoned-batter grades. It's a wholesale house at heart, so you'll find it through specialty grocers and restaurant suppliers more than a big marketplace.
Why it isn't on AmazonThis is restaurant-grade panko from the family that introduced it to America, not a shelf-stable house brand a snack conglomerate stamps out by the truckload.
See it at Upper Crust Enterprises →This seat's open on purpose — we won't pad the list to hit a number. If you ship real panko & japanese breadcrumbs direct, it's earned, not sold.
Add your brand →Panko is made from crustless white bread that's baked into large, jagged, airy flakes instead of ground into fine dust. Those flakes soak up less oil and hold their crunch, which is why katsu and fried shrimp shatter instead of turning soggy. Standard breadcrumb packs dense and browns fast; panko stays light and pale gold.
Often not, and that's fine. A lot of panko sold in the US is made domestically, and Upper Crust has baked it in Los Angeles for over forty years. What makes it panko is the bread and the process, not where the plant sits, so American-made panko from a serious maker is the real article.
You can, but you'll get a different result. Reach for panko when you want a light, crackly crust (katsu, oven-fried chicken, a crisp gratin top) and finer crumb when you want a tight, even coating or a binder in meatballs. Panko also holds up better baked over a casserole as a crunchy topping.
Keep it sealed and dry, since it goes stale and loses its shatter once it takes on humidity. For extra crunch, toast it in a dry pan or a little oil until pale gold before using it as a topping. Buy a size you'll finish, because a giant bag left open for a year is where panko dies.
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