Breakfast to go

Hotel breakfasts used to be a straightforward added-value exercise but, as Bob Gledhill explains, demand for grab-and-go meals has prompted a rethink at the breakfast servery.

Hotels have a captive audience for breakfast and, compared with the food and labour cost of other meals served, breakfast has long been a profitable part of a hotel's food and beverage revenue.

Most business hotels offer a breakfast buffet or limited-service breakfast. But, while the price hike of pork products has added to breakfast food costs in recent months, the reality is that - despite breakfast being included in the room rate - many hotel guests still do no more than snack, with juice, a bowl of cereal, toast and coffee.

That comfortable situation is changing, in part fuelled by the growth in budget accommodation, which may include a breakfast option that means a guest must walk outside to a roadside diner. That in itself is a huge deterrent to the business traveller, conscious of another busy day's schedule ahead, and it encourages guests to think of breakfast as a light snack or even a meal to skip.

The result has been a downturn in breakfast take-up, if it is an optional extra, and a growing demand by corporate bookers that breakfast be taken out of the quoted room price. That way, the business traveller can decide at 7am if he or she has the time or the appetite for a £10-plus full English breakfast.

Hotels have had to start looking more creatively at selling breakfast, not least the trade-up from a snacky Continental to a full English.

The battle to win more revenue from breakfast has led corporate hotels to put more pressure on their breakfast-goods suppliers to offer better deals and point-of-sale marketing material. They are also taking part in breakfast menu branding of known products in an effort to make the breakfast option more appealing.

Suppliers have responded to the new approach. Weetabix, whose breakfast range extends far beyond its namesake cereal product, is now offering hotel breakfast serveries large wicker baskets in order to promote portion packs of its products, Weetos, Alpen and Weetabix.

Weetabix says that, for presentation purposes, the design of the basket should fit in with the individual packaging of the breakfast cereals. If the cereal portion packs being offered are box-shaped, the basket should be rectangular; if there is a high proportion of sachet portions, a round-shaped basket will allow the cereal packets to be fanned out.

Kellogg's also provides display baskets in its range of point-of-sale marketing material for breakfasts, and it has increased its marketing efforts to other captive audiences, such as staff restaurants.

Staff restaurants have been studying potential revenue opportunities from early-morning breakfast traffic. In most cases, the catering staff are already in by the time office staff arrive, and if the restaurant can offer a simple breakfast service while its staff are preparing lunch, that will add to the caterer's operating profit without any additional labour cost.

In a marketing trial, 150 Compass business and industry sites have taken on a scratch-card promotion linked to a Kellogg's purchase. Used in conjunction with table-top tent cards and posters, the scratch cards are given out at tills after a Kellogg's product is purchased. One in four scratch cards produces a prize, and while most of them are free vouchers for a product, or items such as pens, there are also higher-value items to be won, such as a Kellogg's clock radio.

Compass promotions executive Val Mullineux says the early indications of the trial to promote breakfast sales is working. "It's proving to be a really successful initiative, heightening the profile of breakfast and encouraging repeat visits. With a one-in-four chance of winning a prize, we expect this promotion to have greater than average longevity."

If the trial with Compass does prove successful, it may be rolled out nationwide and include hotels as well as food service.

Grab-and-go strategies

Despite the best efforts to persuade customers to eat breakfast in a restaurant, for some there is just not enough time to sit down - breakfast has to be eaten on the hoof or at the work station. The grab-and-go market has traditionally been the province of high-street take-aways, with every burger outlet now having a substantial breakfast as part of its menu.

Cereal manufacturers are moving in on this market, with all-in-one cereal packages that contain the cereal, a portion of milk and a spoon. The concept was originally driven by the needs of airline catering, where unrefrigerated fresh milk presented health and safety risks and there were serving problems, but a wider application has been recognised.

Three manufacturers currently produce all-in-one cereal pots. Ennis Foods of Ireland was the first, followed by Kellogg's and then Pritchitt Foods. All of them use some form of UHT milk to get around the health and safety issue, but despite being ambient-stable, the product still has to be refrigerated to preserve its quality.

High-demand solution

One of the most sophisticated new breakfast revenue streams available to hotels is the bought-in breakfast concept from Britannia Catering. It supplies individually packaged breakfasts, either long-life ambient in grab-and-go boxes or as individual chilled breakfasts for regeneration in combi-steamers or microwave ovens.

Founded on the need of airport-based hotels for large quantities of breakfast to meet unexpected demand from delayed or diverted flights, Britannia has now diversified into supplying bespoke out-of-hours breakfast for hotels.

Sales director Nigel Chaplin says the company's biggest market is now with city-centre hotels that have tour parties or individuals who want a breakfast before the kitchen has opened up.

"If a tour party wants to leave at 5am to catch a flight or visit an attraction far away, the hotel has the chance to sell them a breakfast offer. It can be a chilled meal reheated to eat in the hotel or an ambient breakfast bag they can eat in the hotel room or on the tour bus.

"Hotels are starting to use the chance to have an early-departure breakfast as a selling point to tour operators."

Breakfast in a bag is not something that is restricted to the budget end of the market. Britannia has a large number of four-star London hotels on its books and has just been asked by a five-star hotel to provide grab-and-go breakfast bags for children.

Contacts

Britannia Catering Nigel Chaplin
01753 686844
www.britanniacatering.co.uk

Weetabix
01536 722181

Ennis Foods
01476 575570

Pritchitt Foods
020 8290 7020
www.pritchitt.com

Kellogg's
0800 783 6676
www.kelloggsfoodservice.co.uk