Breakfast Trends: On-the-Go

Breakfast is often considered the most important meal of the day, yet it is the one most often skipped by the American consumer. Estimated at $23 billion in 2004, the breakfast foods market is driven by consumers' need for relatively healthful foods that are easy to prepare and eat.

Consumers are looking wherever they can to find products that help them better maximize how they spend time, and many are cutting out what they believe to be unnecessary steps that eat away at their valuable minutes. Breakfast is increasingly eaten outside the home as adults consolidate commuting time with mealtime. Twenty percent of adults skip five or more breakfasts in a week, and 33% skip at least one breakfast per week. Males aged 25 to 34 skip on average 2.6 breakfasts per week, and half of the consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 report that they are eating on the go more frequently than they were two years ago.

Mintel's own research finds that only 48% of respondents eat breakfast on a daily basis. Factors leading to increased skipping of breakfast include increasingly long commutes and increasingly long work days, and this dearth of time to cook drives consumer acceptance of convenience foods like frozen breakfast items and meal kits, and is very often a factor in their decision to dine out. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed do not feel there is enough time in the day to meet all their commitments, with 36% feeling strongly that this is true.

Clearly, on the whole, respondents feel time-pressured, but they are not necessarily giving up breakfast. According to Mintel's exclusively commissioned consumer research, respondents eat breakfast, on average, four or five times per week. The foodservice industry reports that breakfast is one of the fastest-growing sales areas, indicating that consumers are doing less preparation of breakfast at home. This finding has had the impact of lowering sales of breakfast foods that require elaborate preparation, like pancakes and French toast, while at the same time driving sales of convenient options like frozen breakfast sandwiches, yogurt, and meal replacement bars and drinks.

More traditional fast food chains are putting emphasis on breakfast, a trend that may send more people out of the house to eat. Fast food restaurants, which are in the best position to compete with food from home when time is short, have seen their sales rise as they sharpen their focus on their breakfast offerings. It is clear that leading burger chains are aware of the incremental sales possibilities in the breakfast market, with McDonald's billboard ads for its McGriddles sandwiches and Burger King's Fall 2004 ad campaign for its breakfast sandwiches. In October 2004, CKE Restaurants reported that sales at its Hardee's and Carl's Jr. chains had risen 5% to 9%, fuelled by demand for breakfast offerings.

Convenience stores and coffee shops that sell bagels, donuts, muffins, yogurt drinks, as well as coffee, are seeking to drive their sales by capitalizing on consumers' need for quick breakfast options. According to Mintel's research, 56% of respondents consume coffee with (or as) breakfast. Research for the report also found that Americans spent $1.95 billion on breakfast at coffeehouses in 2002, up 11.5% from $1.75 billion on breakfast food and drinks at coffeehouses in 2000.

The popularity of handheld snacks is growing for kids as well as women, and mothers are the force fueling this trend. New products that combine convenience and healthy eating are big winners with working mothers. When General Mills introduced Go-Gurt, a child-friendly yogurt in squeezable tubes that could be placed in kids' lunchboxes, it was an instant success. Go-Gurt helped lift General Mills to the top of the yogurt business. Subsequently, Stonyfield Farm created kid-appealing YoSqueeze.

Kellogg's offers to-go versions of its regular cereals. The company's Food Away From Home division offers three Cereal-in-a-Cup assortment packs, which offer individual servings of cereal prepackaged in disposable cups. The Family Assortment Pack offers such cereals as Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Smart Start, and Raisin Bran Crunch. There is also a Favorite Assortment Pack, and a Wellness Assortment Pack.

The company has also developed a product called Kellogg's Drink 'N Crunch Portable Cereals, which come in cups that have been specially designed to prevent the cereal from getting soggy in milk. The new product works by keeping the milk and cereal in separate chambers until they meet in the consumer's mouth.

As consumers work longer hours and take on more family responsibilities, they are continually looking for ways to save time, and this is reflected in the market patterns of breakfast food. Foods that can be eaten on the go and that require little or no preparation time, like cereal bars and breakfast sandwiches, continue to do well in this market, outperforming more traditional categories like cereal, refrigerated biscuits and sweet rolls.

For more information on the breakfast foods market or other frozen foods markets, consult Mintel, an independent market research firm based in Chicago. Mintel publishes market research reports on dozens of food categories. Further information is available on Mintel's new report on the breakfast foods market and NFRA members are entitled to a 10% discount on this report. Contact Caroline Sack at 312.943.5250 or email info@mintel.com for further details. Please quote NFRA as reference.

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