Breakfast Accounts for 60% Restaurant Industry Growth

Coffee and breakfast sandwiches key to growth; continued growth projected for breakfast sandwiches.

June 22, 2010

CHICAGO - Breakfast accounted for nearly 60 percent of the restaurant industry??s traffic growth over the past five years, according to new research by The NPD Group.

NPD reported that for the year ending March 2010, more than 12 billion breakfast meals were served at U.S. restaurants, of which 80 percent were purchased from QSRs. Since 2005, breakfast traffic increased on average two percent per year, compared to lunch visits that were flat, and dinner traffic that dipped 2 percent per year.

"Breakfast has been and is projected to continue to be a bright spot for the restaurant industry," says Bonnie Riggs, NPD??s restaurant industry analyst. "A restaurant morning meal serves a variety of needs. In addition to helping us jump start our day, it satisfies the need for convenience, is less costly than other restaurant meals, and is readily available to us."

Specialty coffee and breakfast sandwiches were two of the fastest growing menu items during the morning daypart. From February 2005 through February 2010, volume for both grew twice as fast as the industry.

A soon-to-be-released NPD report, "The Future of Foodservice," will provide a 10-year forecast of foodservice trends, noting that breakfast sandwiches will jump to 14 per capita servings by 2019, up from 11 in 2004.

"There is a lot of activity around the breakfast daypart right now, with chains expanding into the daypart, and the addition of breakfast menu items, promotions and deals," Riggs said. "Currently only one out of ten breakfast opportunities is satisfied by foodservice, and there are more breakfasts skipped than served in restaurants, all of which means that breakfast is a significant growth opportunity for the foodservice industry."

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