SOLUTIONS
Breakfast Foods
Frozen Breakfast All Day
As Crawford at FreshDirect has already observed, frozen breakfast foods are currently hot — but it turns out they’re not just for breakfast. “The hours to eat breakfast foods have ... become more varied, with people eating breakfast foods later in the morning or as an afternoon snack,” explains Scott Glenn, senior director of marketing for the Jimmy Dean brand, part of Springdale, Ark.-based Tyson Foods. Glenn goes on to cite data from The NPD Group: “In fact, since the start of the pandemic, products that play in the frozen protein breakfast, bacon and breakfast sausage categories have all seen an increase in consumption at occasions outside of breakfast. Remote school and working from home have created more flexible eating schedules, with people grabbing protein breakfast options throughout the day.” The brand has forged ahead with new product introductions, despite the public-health crisis. “Innovation, even in times of uncertainty, is critical for addressing evolving consumer needs,” notes Glenn. “While convenience during the pandemic may be less about eating on the go, people are still looking for convenient protein breakfast options for the morning and throughout the day. Jimmy Dean brand is excited to introduce two new products this fall that respond to changing consumer behaviors in the midst of the pandemic: Jimmy Dean Casserole Bites and Jimmy Dean Delights Breakfast Wraps.” The former product offers “everything consumers love about breakfast casseroles baked into handheld, poppable bites made with premium, seasoned Jimmy Dean pork sausage, real eggs, and other breakfast favorites like bacon, potatoes and cheese,” he says, while the latter is “a protein-packed option made with real veggies, all-natural turkey sausage or bacon, white cheddar cheese, and whole scrambled eggs, all conveniently wrapped up into a whole wheat tortilla that can be enjoyed at home or on the go.” These are just two breakfast items in the brand’s “exciting pipeline of innovation,” promises Glenn. Other companies are also meeting the frozen breakfast moment. For example, cinnamon bun purveyor Cinnabon has entered the category with a line of Frozen Breakfast Creations that includes savory options, among them a CinnaBiscuit Chicken Sandwich consisting of fried chicken on a cinnamon chip biscuit, with cinnamon sauce. Despite newcomers venturing into their territory, however, stalwarts in the frozen breakfast space are holding firm. “Our frozen foods business ... saw elevated at-home demand continue, driving very strong net sales growth,” notes Kellogg’s Bahner. “We outpaced each of the [breakfast] category’s three product segments — waffles, pancakes and French toast – aided by strong innovation and renovation.”
Chilling Effect
In the refrigerated section, sales in some categories may have been slightly dented by
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COVID-19-inspired shopping patterns, but new products are still capturing consumer interest — and dollars. “For cream cheese products, we believe shopping trends have impacted sales, more so as people are less in explore mode in the grocery store, and new items are having a hard time being discovered at shelf,” notes Abby Kempf, category manager, innovations at Tillamook, the Oregon-based dairy cooperative whose other products include a variety of other cheeses, as well as yogurt, sour cream and butter. “That said, Tillamook’s new Farmstyle Cream Cheese Spreads are already the No. 2 branded dairy-based cream cheese spread in the U.S., when looking at the past 12 weeks.” Early next year, Tillamook plans to leverage consumer flavor trends and expand the line with a new flavor. Eggs, meanwhile, have been in high demand as a breakfast staple, which George Weaver IV, brand specialist and fourth-generation co-founder of Lancaster, Pa.-based Utopihen Farms, attributes to their sheer versatility: They can be prepared on their own in various ways as well as serving as an ingredient in many other breakfast recipes. Further, even though the category has certainly benefited from Americans’ comparatively more leisurely breakfasts in the age of the coronavirus, Weaver is quick
to point out that “the egg also lends itself to being an inherently quick meal to prepare. It is easy to grab a couple of eggs and cook them right up. ... [They provide] nutrition without time-consuming meal preparation.” According to Weaver, Utopihen’s pasture-raised chicken and duck eggs have proved popular with shoppers eager to stock up on them to avoid too many store trips. He observes that “store buyers ... are upping their orders for pasture-raised eggs because more and more consumers care about what they buy, related not only to what they believe are the best foods for them nutrition-wise, but also foods they know are healthier for the planet and aligned with principles around sustainability.” In regard to the brand’s innovative offerings, Weaver notes that its “soy-free eggs are typically asked for by those [who] may be cutting soy out of their diet, and ... [our] duck eggs ... make pancakes fluffier, and they are higher in protein for those eating Paleo or keto.” As for future brand innovations, he says that the brand is “working with chefs to create simple-to-produce home meal breakfast options that will roll out later this year.”