SugarCreek: Brandworthy Food Solutions

Sous Vide Can Be Your Secret Weapon in the Fast Food Breakfast Wars

Posted by Steve Shutte

Oct 7, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Want to serve up perfectly prepared, slow-cooked brisket sandwiches or meaty, flavorful breakfast tacos to your customers during the morning rush? The tenderness and flavor that come from hours of slow cooking may sound like a pipe dream, but Ready-to-Eat (RTE) sous vide proteins can give you an edge when it comes to breakfast. With more fast food locations than ever catching on to the breakfast trend — and the most significant (and sometimes only) area of growth coming in the morning hours — offering quality proteins in the morning can give your brand a much-needed edge.

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Topics: Sous Vide, Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

4 Things Every Quick Service Restaurants Should Look for in a Breakfast Meat Supplier

Posted by Olga Bitsakis

Sep 30, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Looking to take advantage of the hot quick service breakfast market? You need a reliable vendor to supply your fast food restaurant with the breakfast meat it needs. But what should a QSR supply chain manager or chef look for in a breakfast meat supplier? Are there common characteristics that you could use to narrow the field and find the right vendor partner?

Today, let’s examine 4 things quick service restaurants should require of a breakfast meat supplier —  before they sign a vending contract.

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Topics: Food Service, Supply Chain, QSR, Breakfast

These Supply Chain Secrets Help a QSR Brand Break into Breakfast

Posted by Jerry Leeper

Sep 26, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Introducing breakfast into a QSR chain for the first time comes with a lot of unknowns. Will your customers be interested in morning meals from your brand? Will your price points be attractive enough for repeat business? Are you offering something unique enough to lure in customers from the competition? With so much focus falling on the operational side of your early-morning expansion plans, don't neglect your best ally for breakfast success in the QSR industry: your supply chain.

Here are procurement tips to start your mornings with a lucrative bang.

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

4 Ways to Make a QSR Breakfast Menu Stand Out from the Crowd

Posted by Steve Shutte

Sep 23, 2016 11:30:00 AM

It may seem like everyone is jumping into the QSR breakfast game lately. And really, that’s not far from the truth. Breakfast is driving sales industry-wide, up 2.3% in just the past year even as other dayparts falter, according to USA TODAY.

Breakfast has become an increasingly on-the-go meal, too. Just 10 years ago, only 11 percent of breakfast eaters got their meal away from home. Today? It’s up to 28 percent.

But with the rush to put breakfast on the table, we’ve seen a lot of menu copycatting. Just how many breakfast burritos can the market accommodate before consumers become bored and move on? And that’s especially a worry for companies marketing to Millennials. The current generation of young adults has shown a marked tendency to seek new tastes and new experiences — and to quickly tire of the same old, same old.

So how can your fast food restaurant stand out in the breakfast crowd and keep younger consumers interested? Let’s take a look at 4 ways you can distinguish your QSR brand in the red hot breakfast rush.

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

QSR Companies Face Challenges When Trying to Tap into Another Daypart

Posted by Alan Riney

Sep 16, 2016 11:30:00 AM

There are apocryphal stories about immigrants in the 19th and 20th Centuries arriving in America having heard stories about “streets paved with gold.” They’re cautionary tales for us — they remind us to temper expectations and avoid buying into baseless hype.

There’s certainly a lot of hype about breakfast in the QSR industry right now. Luckily, it’s not all unsubstantiated. That the AM daypart is a growing sales driver is no mistake — morning fast food sales reportedly grew 2.3% last year, outpacing all other dayparts.

But taking advantage of the hot breakfast market takes more than throwing together a few breakfast burritos and open your restaurant doors. The road to breakfast profits isn’t paved with gold, and it does have a few hazards that you should be on the look out to avoid.

Today, let’s take a look at a few of the biggest challenges fast food companies might encounter when they decide to make the move into new dayparts.

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

QSR Companies Who Are Innovating the Breakfast Supply Chain

Posted by Jeff Cowles

Sep 12, 2016 11:30:00 AM

If your morning market share could use a strong cup of coffee, chances are you're slipping when it comes to breakfast. Appealing to the sensibilities of the early morning crowd's hunger is the "moving target" of the QSR industry. While lunchtime and even dinnertime palates are a little flexible, few American consumers care to venture too far afield when it comes to the day's first sustenance. That presents an interesting challenge for QSR breakfast purveyors. Not only do they have to prove themselves in the normal arenas of customer hearts and minds — variety, taste and value — they also have to prove they're a better place to spend precious minutes in a hectic morning routine.

What's an upstart chain to do in such a volatile battlefield? Look to the — pardon the pun — well-seasoned veterans of the breakfast battle.

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Topics: Food Service, Supply Chain, QSR, Breakfast

4 Tips to Help Quick Service Restaurants Get Breakfast Right

Posted by Frank Barcelona

Sep 9, 2016 11:30:00 AM

There’s no doubt about it. Fast food breakfast is hot. Really hot.

In just the past few years, the breakfast daypart has rocketed to become a lucrative daypart for McDonald’s, Taco Bell and many other national and regional names in the QSR industry. Even as fast food sales have slowed at lunch and dinner time, industry-wide breakfast sales ticked up another 2.3% in just the past year, according to USA TODAY, and they show no signs of plateauing soon.

So how can fast food companies make sure that they get breakfast right? With so much competition in the market, there’s not a lot of room for uncertainty.

Today, we thought we’d take a look at 4 solid tips that your QSR company can use to build a solid, competitive breakfast menu and tap into the sizzling demand.

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

4 Breakfast Trends Fast Food Restaurants Need to Leave Behind

Posted by Olga Bitsakis

Aug 22, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Breakfast is blurring boundaries in all sorts of ways for the QSR industry. The lines between meal and snack, the time distinction between early morning and later in the day or even late night, and the frontier between old fashioned familiar tastes and new, unexpected flavors are all up for redefinition.

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

3 “Ls” a QSR Brand Must Consider Before Testing a Breakfast Line

Posted by Steve Shutte

Aug 19, 2016 11:30:00 AM

Fast food breakfast has become a tightly competitive market, especially now that many QSR chains are offering breakfast items outside the traditional bounds of the morning daypart. But consumer demand for quick, convenient breakfast foods has proven itself to be very strong. At McDonald’s, for example, all-day breakfast items reportedly now account for an estimated 25 percent of all sales. Results like those have made breakfast so attractive that many fast food franchises — even those that have never before tested it — are taking steps to enter the market.

Before launching their breakfast lines, though, there are 3 “Ls” QSR companies should consider:

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Topics: Food Service, QSR, Breakfast

How to Build a Supply Chain That Can Tackle the Challenges of QSR Breakfast

Posted by Dan Barton

Aug 15, 2016 11:30:00 AM

This piece was originally published on Supply & Demand Chain Executive.

Breakfast is becoming a sandbox for QSR innovation in new food and new processes. Demands for fresh fare, locally sourced produce and specialty versions of classic ingredients are clamoring for their turn in the spotlight, and customers are enthusiastically partaking. These new eating trends come with logistics demands of their own, but when you factor in the call for longer "breakfast" times, it becomes even more challenging. With new products and new demand windows on the horizon, can your current sourcing and logistics keep pace with QSR industry challenges? The most in-demand item on your supply chain breakfast menu should be a heaping scoop of agility.

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Topics: Food Service, Supply Chain, QSR, Breakfast