CHICAGO (PRNewswire) — Sandwiches may dominate lunch menus, but at the largest chain restaurants sandwiches are increasingly part of the breakfast scene. In early 2013, breakfast sandwiches were up 8.1 percent annually on the menus of Top 500 limited service restaurants, according to Technomic's MenuMonitor service. A separate Technomic survey found that one third of consumers eat breakfast sandwiches at least once a week, suggesting that operators have an opportunity to promote their convenience and affordability, a move that could increase sales during the breakfast daypart.
"Sandwiches are an important part of a restaurant's menu," says Technomic Executive Vice President Darren Tristano. "The number of ingredients, preparation methods, and sauces can seem endless. Keeping abreast of trends appearing on restaurant menus is one way operators and suppliers can get ahead of their competition."
With Technomic's MenuMonitor, operators and suppliers can extract detailed menu information and insights based on searches by key ingredients, sauces, preparations, brands and more. Recent examples related to sandwiches include:
- At breakfast, bacon is the most popular protein, appearing on 30.1 percent of sandwiches, followed by ham (23.7 percent) and sausage (22.9 percent).
- Among breakfast sandwich breads, flatbreads, paninis and croissants saw the most growth, while breads like ciabatta and tortilla declined.
- On lunch and dinner menus, chicken is the most popular sandwich protein, featured 25 percent of the time, followed by bacon (15.4 percent) and turkey (14.8 percent).
- Year over year, operators increased their use of traditional condiments like mayonnaise, mustard and ranch dressing, and were less likely to menu alternatives like pesto, aioli, or vinaigrette.
MenuMonitor is an online searchable resource for in-depth menu tracking. With instant access to thousands of current U.S. (1,900) and international (1,500) menus, as well as powerful tools for menu analysis, subscribers can conduct customized searches to identify trends and gain a better perspective of the global culinary terrain.