ALEXANDRIA, Va. – When McDonald’s announced that its stores would serve a selection of all-day breakfast items 24/7 starting on October 6, the story received the same amount of news coverage as a high-profile Hollywood scandal or an earthquake registering 8.5 on the Richter scale.
Most news stories failed to mention that many convenience stores, such as 7-Eleven, Rutter’s, Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes and Sheetz, have long offered around-the-clock breakfast foods.
“If we sell it, you can get it 24 hours a day,” said Ryan Krebs, director of foodservice for Rutter’s of York, Pennsylvania. “You can get chicken wings at 6:00 in the morning and a breakfast sandwich at 4:00 in the afternoon. People aren’t going to eat breakfast three times a day, but they are going to eat breakfast.”
If you have a grill program and you have the space, all-day breakfast fare could be an easy opportunity as long as you don’t complicate it, advised NACS Vice President of Strategic Industry Initiatives Jeff Lenard. “The challenge for anybody who wants to do multiple daypart sandwiches in the same daypart is how you execute it. How do you keep a simple menu and develop a simple process for cooking food quickly and getting people on their way?”
In the New Year, be sure to read your copy of NACS Magazine for convenience retailer insights on all-day breakfast, and whether your foodservice program is poised to successfully bring morning daypart fare to customers. In addition to the January issue, the latest report from the NACS reFresh initiative, “Health & Wellness Trends and Strategies for the Convenience Store Sector,” prepared by the Hudson Institute on behalf of NACS, shows convenience retailers how to capitalize on the growing trend of consumers seeking better-for-you, more convenient products. More specifically, “the most important meal of the day” presents the healthiest opportunity for c-stores to exploit.
According to the research, while taste wins across all eating occasions (breakfast, lunch and dinner), nutrition is the highest attribute consumers are looking for at breakfast time. In fact, a nutritious breakfast trumps both convenience and cost. These insights are also captured in the October 2015 NACS Magazine cover story, “Blending Health and Convenience.”