All-day breakfasts on the rise along with grab and go choices
/In recent times breakfast and brunch have expanded from a distinctive day part into a bigger revenue opportunity across the day, with all-day breakfasts now proliferating on café and club menus. At the same time, the ongoing staff and skills shortage in foodservice has meant more businesses are relying heavily on readymade products which can be cost-effectively employed to cut down on prep time while delivering customer satisfaction.
Tip Top Foodservice bakery INNOVATION Manager Darren O’Brien
And as Tip Top Foodservice Bakery Innovation Manager Darren O’Brien points out, value and satisfaction are two key drivers in the category. “Value doesn’t necessarily mean cheap - it means the customer walked out full and satisfied,” Darren emphasises. “Your customer may be willing to pay extra for something nice, but what they don’t want is to leave hungry. This is why bread is a cost-effective choice on the breakfast menu as it is comparatively inexpensive and it is filling – plus it works with so many things, you can put almost anything on a sandwich, bun or muffin and it will fill your customers up.
“The insights and research we are looking at shows a strong growth in all-day breakfasts all the way through to closing time”
Focus on the staples
“Certainly the insights and research we are looking at shows a strong growth in all-day breakfasts all the way through to closing time – particularly near tertiary education centres, cafes are serving breakfast through to 11pm, mainly comfort food staples like bacon and eggs. It’s a meal people go for when they need basic sustenance and for that reason protein is much in demand.
“There has also been a blurring of the lines with people’s changing lifestyles – we have more people doing gym in the morning and not being able to eat until later, but they still need their protein fix, which has driven the growth of the grab and go breakfast category. Then later on they may have something light before they dive into lunch. What we’re seeing is that the first page of the typical café menu now tends to be all-day breakfast and the next is lunch and dinner which kicks in later.
“Naturally, when you’re offering an all-day breakfast you want to keep it relatively simple, focusing on the staples like eggs, bacon, hash browns, smashed avocado – that way it’s easy to put together without too much labour and prep and it also ties in to what you’re offering later in the day.”
Looking at current and emerging breakfast trends, Darren cites the rise of banh mi rolls in the category – “There’s a particular dish in Vietnam called Banh Mi Op La, which is basically a Vietnamese egg sandwich on a banh mi roll. It uses the typical banh mi fillings but with the addition of chopped up fried egg and that is fast becoming a popular breakfast item. On the higher end side, cafes are also serving up lobster rolls with egg on brioche, which is a new trend.”
“Cafes are serving up lobster rolls with egg on brioche, which is a new trend”
breakfast burger with tip top brioche bun
The emergence of the breakfast burger on the menu was driven by the booming burger craze some years back and has become a must-have, though Darren says the fillings have been simplified somewhat over time: “Rather than loading it up with all sorts of toppings, the trend has moved towards a straightforward burger pattie with egg and cheese, often on a muffin rather than a bun. The humble muffin has made somewhat of a return on the breakfast menu – it's always been a staple breakfast but its popularity rises and wanes in peaks and troughs, and over the last couple of years it’s been in decline but it’s now making a return.
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“It’s a bit of a lighter choice than a big bun or chunk of bread – flatter and lower diameter and the texture is lighter and airier, and people tend to be moving towards them to hold your breakfast burger. This ties in to the trend across the board for smaller portions and lighter meals and also it suits grab and go, because muffins are great as a handheld item which will nevertheless fill you up and can be loaded with plenty of protein fillings.”
Grab and go breakfast items are once again on the rise, thanks in part to businesses pushing for staff to return to working on the premises three days a week. “Covid seems a long way off now, but what happened with it is we lost a lot of the grab and go menu when people pivoted to working from home,” Darren says.
“Now that businesses are mandating three days in the office, the grab and go café trade is coming back because people are coming in and grabbing their breakfast to take back to work with them. The current international fuel situation may impact that – it’s early days so a little difficult to say – but prior to the Iran war we were certainly on a solid trajectory for grab and go thanks to this influx of workers coming back into our city centres.”
“The weekday choices are more around grab and go, being filled up and satisfied”
Darren adds that Easter traditionally marks the point at which crumpets become in demand in the café market – as the colder months start to make their presence felt.
“We sell frozen crumpets by the carton and they are always very popular in the winter – a lot of foodservice outlets will buy them and use them as an alternative to toast, loading them up with bacon and avocado and so on.
“Interestingly, in the home they tend to be eaten with butter and honey or jam, but in foodservice they tend to be used more with savoury toppings – they have become a bit of a staple in cafes in this regard.”
Darren adds that Tip Top Foodservice’s research also shows diners are still being quite adventurous and exploratory – “They are happy to try new menu items especially on weekends, hence the rise of choices like the lobster roll I mentioned earlier.
“The weekday choices are more around grab and go, being filled up and satisfied – the weekends are more about exploring and seeing what new choices are on the menu.
“We’re also seeing strong popularity for Middle Eastern flavours – spices like dukkha sprinkled over eggs, along with infused oils. It’s all about adding a twist to the typical breakfast menu and a contemporary touch that will resonate with your customers.”
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