Restaurants could expand business by engaging the 31 million consumers who currently skip breakfast, according to a new report from The NPD Group.
Ten percent of Americans skip breakfast every day, the Port Washington, N.Y.-based market research firm’s “Morning MealScape 2011” report found.
“With 31 million people skipping breakfast each day, there is a significant opportunity for food and beverage marketers to reach these consumers,” Dori Hickey, NPD’s director of product management and the report’s author, said. “Marketing messages emphasizing the importance of having a morning meal should be age- and gender-specific in order to increase their effectiveness.”
For instance, Hickey said, an advertising campaign aimed at boosting breakfast sales among teenagers should including marketing materials and commercials aimed at the teens, as well as their parents.
In other demographic groups, the rates of skipping breakfast vary widely.
For consumers ages 18 to 34 years old, 28 percent of men and 18 percent of women skip breakfast. Eighteen percent of men 35 to 54 years old and 13 percent of women in that age group go without a morning meal. Older consumers are the least likely to skip breakfast, with 11 percent of men 55 and older and 10 percent of women in that age group going without.
Among the most common reasons for consumers to report not eating or drinking anything before 11 a.m. was not feeling hungry or thirsty, NPD’s research found. Other reasons, cited more often by women, included not having enough time in the morning and being too busy.
For the majority of Americans who do eat breakfast, NPD found that nearly three-fourths of them typically do so at home, while 14 percent of survey respondents said they typically eat breakfast at restaurants. Nearly one in five respondents reported having breakfast items both at home and at restaurants.
The report considered data from 27,179 participants.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
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