The breakfast club: Membership is open for all

 

Everyone wants in on the breakfast action   The first Saturday of February is celebrated as National Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. The point of “food holidays” is a bit of a mystery – a cynic would say dolla dolla bill y’all, not us though. Who doesn’t dream of unabashedly gorging on ice cream first thing in the morning?    According to lore, this day was created on a blizzardy Feb morning in the ’60s when a nice lady called Florence Rappaport decided she wanted to give her six bored kids a sugar rush early in the morning. And history was born.    Ice cream brand Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams celebrated this day this year with the launch of an entire range of desserts featuring breakfast flavors. Jeni’s has been celebrating this day with special products every year in their food service outlets for a while now, this range may be a permanent fixture for retail shelves.

 

Source: Jeni’s Ice Cream   Jeni’s isn’t the only one placing bets on desserts for breakfast. In February 2024, snack brand Hostess introduced HoneyBun Donettes as part of their “breakfast snack” range. This is a marriage of two Hostess snacks – the cinnamon and sweet vanilla glaze flavor of Hostess HoneyBuns with the fluffy texture of Hostess Donettes – and is aimed at people who want something sweet in the morning. To sweeten the pot (sorry, couldn’t resist), this breakfast snack is free from high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and artificial flavors.   Source: PR NewsWire   If these aren’t enough to satisfy your sweet tooth, Conagra and Dunkin’ have you covered. Mrs Butterworth’s and the donut brand have come together to create a glazed donut flavored syrup and launched it in Feb 2024. This syrup is said to be reminiscent of Dunkin’s popular glazed donut.    Source: Food Dive   But it isn’t just the sweet treats eyeing the breakfast market. Savory options are also emerging. Last year, Nissin Foods launched a limited edition variant called Cup Noodles Breakfast, which brought together common breakfast flavors – sausage, eggs, pancakes, and maple syrup – into a single noodles product. Surprisingly enough, this product was well-received. Nissin called this product “the first ramen product for the most important meal of the day”, bringing the snack or quick meal into the orbit of breakfast foods.   Source: FoodBev Media   Across the pond, in late 2023, fast food chain German Doner Kebab has brought the standard post-pub crawl fare into the light with the UK’s first breakfast offering featuring kebabs. The chain is expanding into the breakfast space with products like doner egg brioche, kebab breakfast wrap, doner panini, and others, including hash browns.   German Doner Kebab’s breakfast wrap with chicken/beef and egg, tomato, and hash browns   Source: The Guardian   Breakfast is the most important meal of the day once again   It looks like there’s a bit of a tit-for-tat sitch going on.    Over the last decade, we’ve seen breakfasts break out of the morning meal mold and encroach into other meal occasions – think all-day breakfasts, brunches, and cereal for dinner.    The all-day breakfast concept saw a spike in interest for a hot minute way back in 2015-16 but has been declining since then, while boozy brunches took centerstage for Millennials. But these have been losing some traction as they become more mainstream as well as from consumers grazing through the day on snacks of all shapes and sizes.   Interest in all-day breakfast

Source: Spoonshot

 

Interest in brunch

 

Source: Spoonshot

But with the pandemic, interest in elaborate breakfasts made a comeback to a certain extent as remote work meant that people actually had time to fix themselves a proper meal in the mornings. And consumers are very much interested in breakfast.    In the 12 months leading up to January 2024, consumer interest in breakfast went up by 8.7%, while business interest saw a much more modest growth of 0.9%. Consumer interest is also 2.6X more than business interest, and from Spoonshot’s experience, this is an indication that there is a significant gap in supply and thus room for innovation in this space.     Consumer and business interest in breakfast foods

 

Source: Spoonshot

 

According to Mordor Intelligence, the global breakfast foods market size is projected to grow from US$202.9 billion in 2024 to US$245.5 billion in 2029, at a CAGR of 3.9%. While health will be a major driver for the market, so will convenience and satisfaction. And as breakfast once again takes its place as the most important meal of the day, other meal occasion foods are turning their sights to the morning (this is the “tat” part).

Where the opportunities lie    While breakfast food staples are still going strong, new products like plant-based meats are also entering the fray, according to a survey by Civic Science.

 

Note: 1,331 responses from a survey conducted between 12/29/2023 and 01/02/2024 Source: Civic Science

 

A quick skim through social media shows dishes like breakfast bowls, smoothie bowls, and breakfast bakes becoming increasingly popular, though these are still relatively new niches. And their convenience, healthfulness, and Instagrammable/TikTokable nature push up their appeal as well. These are essentially a reimagining of the all-in-one breakfast, so there’s a lot of room to play with ingredients to create very palatable end products.   Morning snacking is poised to become a significant trend giving the breakfast space a boost, which is where traditional indulgence brands are looking to make a mark. Snacks are replacing traditional hot and cold breakfasts in a big way. Mondelēz International’s State of Snacking report found that the morning snack consumption occasion (from 6am to 10am) grew by 42% compared to the 22% growth in the afternoon snacking occasion (12pm to 3pm). The morning snacking space is most popular with Gen Z, older Millennials, and women.    Sweet snacks – like Jeni’s ice cream range and Hostess products – can be seen as an extension of sweet breakfast foods by bringing in flavors of traditional breakfasts.    Top breakfast food flavors, US

 

Source: Spoonshot

And finally, variety has a strong shot at really spicing things up.    Gen Z – the current and future consumer kings – are demographically the most racially and ethnically diverse generation. A Pew Research study found that among 6-21-year-olds in the US, 48% are non-White. They are also digital natives, likely not even remembering a pre-internet time. This means that they are likely to be exposed to a much wider cultural smorgasbord compared to previous generations, particularly when it comes to food options. This makes them more open to new foods and new combinations of food cultures. As such, companies that can offer such diversity in terms of breakfast options, merging new foods and flavors with recognizable and convenient formats will appeal to these younger consumers. The breakfast noodles and doner kebab options we saw above are potential reflections of this.   A look at the leading cuisines consumers talked about in the 24 months to Jan 2024 highlights the diversity of potential options for a consumer base hungry for new breakfast offerings.   Top growing cuisines in consumer media channels, US

 

Source: Spoonshot

 

This opens the doors for prepared meal manufacturers, who have traditionally catered to the lunch and dinner audience, to expand into fresh and frozen options for breakfast consumers. Manufacturers in this category especially have the advantage of offering cost-effective but healthy products at a time when consumers have been forced to become a lot more price-sensitive but don’t want to compromise on quality.