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The coronavirus pandemic has caused a collapse in breakfast sales in many well-known fast food chains. In the United States, a fast food breakfast that has “killed” a corona is being reported, while in Finland the situation is slightly different.
News Business Insider says many well – known fast food chains are now suffering from a stall in breakfast sales in the United States. Problems include familiar international chains such as McDonald’s and Starbuck’s. The collapse in sales is due to the loss of customers caused by the corona pandemic: when people don’t travel the same way to work, there is also no normal demand for fast food breakfasts.
Korona “killed” the breakfast
Before the pandemic, breakfast was a growing market in the fast food field. According to Business Insider, daytime and evening sales at fast food chains have increased during the pandemic, but Korona “killed” breakfast.
– Before the pandemic, breakfast was the only growing market for daily sales. So there were constantly more competitors entering the breakfast market, which put pressure on us, says Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s.
While McDonald’s has managed to catch a big slice of breakfast customers in the U.S. during the pandemic, customer numbers have been small and the “dead breakfast market” has pulled the chain’s sales into the red.
Coffee chains have found that instead of breakfast, people now come later in the morning for coffee shopping. That’s why, for example, the coffee chain Starbuck’s has added more and more snack options to the lists instead of traditional breakfast dishes.
Breakfast does not play such a big role in McDonald’s in Finland
Heli Ryhänen, Communications Director at McDonald’s Finland, says that the importance of breakfast in sales is not as significant in our country as in the US market, for example.
– Compared to Americans, Finns do not eat the same amount of breakfast outside the home, except for take-away coffee, so the effects on breakfast sales were not significant here, Ryhänen says.
According to Ryhänen, the biggest change caused by the coronavirus pandemic took place as demand shifted to the car lane and home delivery. In addition, the average purchase at lunchtime increased.
– We interpreted this change as meaning that customers were apparently looking for food for the whole family instead of individual lunch meals purchased for themselves.