The Ever-Expanding Day Part

By Amelia Levin, Sr. Associate Editor -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 7/31/2008 9:10:00 AM

Arby’s adds a breakfast offering while McDonald’s considers serving breakfast all day. Dunkin’ Donuts expands its lunchtime offerings with a line of flatbread sandwiches, while Starbucks introduces its Vivanno line of smoothies as meal replacements for breakfast, lunch, or even dinner. Taco Bell adds a “fourth meal” for late-night options while Burger King does the same, staying open until 2 a.m. or later Thursday through Saturday to cater to the partying crowds.

Why are so many chains clearly attempting to expand business during their traditionally non-peak day parts? 

The days of the rigid three-meals-a-day are over. Now, consumers snack all day long on mini-meals as part of a healthy diet, others are looking for breakfast foods during non-breakfast hours, and more people are staying up late and as a result, getting hungry late. But there’s more to it than that. 

“Given the current economic situation in this country, many companies are desperately looking for options to increase sales,” says Mark Godward, principal of Strategic Restaurant Engineering in Miami. “Operators are perhaps seeing sales not as strong as they’d like so they start resorting to measures to grab those sales during other day parts. For example, if there’s a decline in lunch sales, many companies think about making the sales back in the middle of the night.” 

The most important consideration in all of this, however, is doing one’s homework. “If you don’t consider all the complexities involved, you could actually do worse,” Godward says.

Karen Malody, principal of Culinary Options, agrees. Expanding day parts requires “a big operational assessment, menu development strategy and staffing study that assures the operator that the effort to add day parts will truly pay off in the long run,” she says. “To jump into such an initiative without first having done the analysis and development could only make lurking issues of sagging sales worse.”

Some of the questions companies need to ask, she says, are, “What are the sales-volume projections expected from adding the new day part? What is the break-even point? In essence, what is it going to take part of operations to meet those numbers? How will the changes be advertised?” Marketing, she adds, is a key part to ensuring new day part initiatives will succeed.

Next Steps – Storage and Equipment
Once research shows that an operator will benefit from expanding day parts or menu offerings, it’s time to consider storage, energy and labor needs.

While walk-in coolers and dry storage at the back of the house may not change with expanded day parts, “where you’re going to have a major impact is on the coolers at the point of service and on the assembly line in general,” Godward says. “Operators must consider if they have enough space for the added ingredients, and ensure they’re readily available in drawers under prep tables or in reach-in refrigerators on the line. They also might need more room to prep items on the operating line.”

The other major change to the assembly line when expanding day parts is temperature control on the cooking equipment. “If you’re cooking eggs and pancakes vs. hamburgers, the cooking temperatures are different, so you need to dedicate some areas of a grill to work at lower temperatures, or dedicate one fryer for that need,” Godward says. 

According to Malody, using equipment and line layouts as they exist, rather than trying to add more equipment or undergo costly remodels is an important consideration when adding menu items or expanding day parts. 

“When operators try to build sales volume in this way, they also need to utilize current product inventories as much as possible to maximize cross-over and usage,” she says. Creating the new menus or menu items to work with existing food inventory helps offset the cost of purchasing additional ingredients, especially now that food prices have escalated, she says. 

And in the case of late-night operations, Godward says, “Simply keeping the lights and gas flowing for cooking presents additional costs.” Instead of expanding day parts, perhaps the other option is to work on cutting costs or figuring out other ways to add value for the customer, he says. 

Labor Needs
Ensuring that operators not only have enough staff members to operate the restaurant during an expanded day part proves just as important as having the proper staff members to start.

“You need the right employees to make the new foods you’re going to serve. If you have employees who traditionally only prepare lunch and dinner items, and you begin serving breakfast, then you have to train your staff to prepare those breakfast items.” 

These are all important factors to consider when weighing whether to shift into other day parts.

Breakfast Bets
Despite the potential costs associated with shifting day parts, the benefits of the potential added sales can’t be overlooked. McDonald’s has enjoyed huge success with its introduction of snack wraps for the on-the-go, in-between meal eating. And Jack in the Box has also experienced higher sales since offering breakfast all-day as part of its full menu, Godward says. 

Breakfast, in particular, seems to be growing widely in popularity. “There is a huge demand for people who have different eating patterns because of different jobs they have,” Godward says.

In the past, those with late-night or over-night working shifts at hospitals, hotels and other 24-hour institutions didn’t have many options for solid meals, but that has since changed. “Given the option to eat something like a bag of chips from a convenience store vs. a hot, cooked breakfast sandwich, I think people would be more inclined to eat the sandwich as a meal,” Godward says. Convenience stores, as a result, have capitalized on this notion. And now with chains offering more round-the-clock options, round-the-clock workers “may decide to leave the cafeteria and take a quick drive to a nearby chain.” As a result, commercial and non-commercial operators seem to be competing at a level where they never used to compete. 

While expanding into other day parts may offer great potential in terms of top-line revenue, this move also presents significant risks. But regardless of their position and segment, operators of all kinds need to understand all that’s involved with expanding their day parts and make informed decisions before doing so.