SPRINGDALE, Ark. – Demand for breakfast has spilled over outside of the traditional a.m. daypart, and manufacturers have capitalized on that with its breakfast sandwiches available in convenience stores, Baking Business reports.

For example, Tyson Foods has three brands with breakfast sandwiches for the c-store channel: Big AZ, Hot ‘N’ Ready and Jimmy Dean. All three lines provide different options for customers, such as Big AZ’s substantial sandwiches and Hot ‘N’ Ready’s five bread choices. One way Tyson Foods drives sales to the category throughout the day is with packaging. For example, Tyson recently revamped the Hot ‘N’ Ready packaging to have a window.

“What we’ve been seeing in consumer research is that there’s added value in seeing the product before you purchase it,” Nancy Todys, director of c-store and vending channel development for Tyson Foods, said. “Consumers can see the quality, judge the freshness and see the size even better.”

Tyson’s also has each of the lines wrapped in paper instead of plastic. “Just looking at it, you’d think it was made in the back of the store,” she said.

Eby-Brown’s Wakefield Sandwich Co. has 10 breakfast sandwiches under the Wakefield brand, and Eby-Brown also sources other national breakfast sandwich brands, including AdvancePierre. “The Wakefield offering continues to evolve,” Andy Batt, Wakefield vice president of development, said. “The most recent additions have been a chorizo and egg on a corn biscuit, Southern chicken biscuit and a vegetarian egg white frittata on whole wheat.”

The breakfast sandwich category at Eby-Brown has done very well with a 17% yearly growth rate. Batt pointed out that convenience stores have made breakfast sandwiches available all day long before other chains like McDonald’s started doing so. “Convenience stores have offered this for years, as customers could heat their breakfast sandwich purchase at any time of day,” he said.