Portions and price points may be shrinking, but restaurant chains aren’t thinking small. In the competition for the ultimate incremental — snack sales — brands are focusing on beverages, bites and small plates, with an emphasis on portability and value, as ways to fill in the gaps between breakfast and lunch. 


For a glimpse of the sales potential of morning snacks, survey the breakfast items being offered at the industry’s biggest quick-service chains, which are either already deriving hefty profits from morning business, such as McDonald’s, or are currently testing new breakfast menus, such as Taco Bell and Wendy’s.


Taco Bell is betting heavily that a new breakfast test in California and Arizona will help fuel its growth from 5,000 U.S. locations today to more than 8,000, according to officials. The items in test are portable and value oriented, which should prompt sales throughout the morning and leading to lunch. 
This is not the first time Taco Bell has capitalized on between-meal occasions. Its “Fourthmeal,” caters to the late-night crowd with foods designed to fill the gap between dinner and breakfast.
Among the chain’s new breakfast items is the portable Sausage Skillet Burrito for $2.79. The chain also offers a “Why Pay More!” menu pricing structure, offering a 79-cent Potato & Cheese Roll-Up, 89-cent Classic Breakfast Burritos and a 99-cent Hash Brown. Traditional morning players, such as Starbucks Coffee, Caribou Coffee and Jamba Juice — which target customers’ daily purchases during the commute to work — all have rolled out oatmeal in order to drive incremental traffic and build sales of other snacks, such as baked goods and drinks.


“[Breakfast time] was of interest because it’s a very habitual daypart, particularly for those interested in health,” said Susan Shields, chief marketing officer for Jamba Juice.


Wendy’s is currently testing its “Everyday Breakfast Value Menu” in six markets. The line addresses not only price, but also portability with items like the Sausage & Egg Burrito and Fresh Baked Oatmeal Bar.


McDonald’s has spent much of its time and R&D budget the past several years bolstering its snack lineup, from extensions to the “Snack Wrap” line and tests of Chicken Flatbreads to morning initiatives such as Fruit & Maple Oatmeal, the “Breakfast Dollar Menu” and the McCafé espresso-based beverages, which have significantly driven up coffee sales, according to officials.




CASE STUDY: Jamba Juice
, Emeryville, Calif.


Restaurant chains often cite snacks’ convenience and portability, as well as potential health benefits resulting from their diminutive size, as reasons for developing small menu items and beverages to sell between meals. Quick-service chain Jamba Juice recognizes the importance of those qualities — especially since they are characteristics of the brand’s core smoothie offering.


“That was the genesis of the brand: convenient, better for you and able to be consumed on the go,” said Susan Shields, chief marketing officer of the 740-unit Emeryville, Calif.-based chain.


As such, she said, Jamba’s traffic didn’t cluster in normal daypart patterns around breakfast, lunch and dinner, but rather spread out evenly throughout the day. To develop snack items for incremental sales, Jamba targeted offerings that would complement smoothie purchases and enable customers to meet different needs.


“When we think of snacks, they’re snacks that are pairing with smoothies to make a light meal,” Shields said. “Or they’re coming in for a smoothie and taking a snack for later. … We learned a certain percentage of our guests were consuming the smoothie they bought with food they bought either at Jamba Juice or at some other place. So pushing pairings made sense; we just had to make sure that usage occasion was captured all there in our store.”


Products resulting from this push included beverages like the Hot Blends, which targeted morning customers with hot coffee, chai and green tea, and hot chocolate blended with milk, plus five varieties of Steel-Cut Oatmeal. The “Ideal Meals” section of Jamba’s menu now includes four varieties of Topper Smoothies, which are topped with granola and fresh bananas.


“With our chips, energy bars and baked goods in the case, it had been a long while since we refreshed,” Shields said. “They needed to exceed expectations of taste and pair well with smoothies. We did extensive testing of our savory and sweet snacks, and we’ve seen an amazing lift from the newness of that line and from the improved product quality.”


Different baked goods are hitting at different points of the day, she added, pointing out that the Berry Agave Bar has grown sales throughout the day, while the Sourdough Parmesan Pretzel most often is paired with a smoothie at lunchtime.


Jamba marketed snacks and baked goods to pair with smoothies through its e-mail and Facebook programs, as well as print materials in the register shroud, Shields said.


“[The marketing] is easy to attach, and you’re not reliant upon the team member to talk for you,” she said. “Let the visual of ‘this plus this’ work for you. We’re educating customers that the pairing is a light meal, and that’s driving that incrementality.”


Snacks also are affecting profitability favorably, as no additional labor is needed to ring up the higher average checks, she added.


“The goal is really to get into that habit and reinforce that Jamba Juice is the customer’s solution across dayparts for foods that enable a healthy lifestyle,” Shields said, “and that’s where we’re getting traction.” 


Contact Mark Brandau at mark.brandau@penton.com.