Menu Trend Watch: Chicken for Breakfast
By Aimee Harvey on Mar. 30, 2017CHICAGO -- Poultry-based breakfast meats have been on the trend radar for quite some time. Over the past several years, there’s been an uptick in proteins such as chicken apple sausage, turkey bacon and sausage, as well as craveable novelty items like chicken and waffles.
Data from Technomic’s most recent Breakfast Consumer Trend Report reveals that 43% of consumers aged 18 to 34, and 33% of women, want menus to offer more chicken for breakfast. Convenience stores are responding to this preference; since 2014, Technomic’s MenuMonitor shows that there’s been a 16% increase in the number of c-store breakfast items featuring chicken.
Click through to see how c-stores are promoting chicken for the morning meal; plus, take a look at what restaurants are doing to address this trend, courtesy of our sister publication Restaurant Business ...
1. Circle K's Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit
Introduced in late 2016, Circle K's Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit sandwich features a breaded, crispy white-meat chicken patty in between two flaky biscuit layers, topped with a sweet-tinged honey-butter sauce.
2. QuickChek's Crispy Chicken Ranch Biscuit
Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based QuickChek's new line of Honey Butter Biscuit breakfast sandwiches includes two chicken options: the Crispy Chicken Ranch Biscuit, topped with ranch dressing and pickle chips; and the Crispy Chicken Egg & Cheese Biscuit.
3. RaceTrac's Southern Style Chicken Biscuit
Atlanta-based RaceTrac recently rolled out a Southern Style Chicken Biscuit, featuring a homestyle breaded chicken breast sandwiched in a buttermilk biscuit.
4. Royal Farms' Chicken, Egg and Cheese Sub or Croissant
Baltimore-based Royal Farms brings its signature fried chicken to a new breakfast lineup. Its Chicken, Egg and Cheese sandwich options feature the choice of a sub roll or a croissant.
5. Sheetz's Farmhouse Chicken Flatbread
Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz rolled out a Farmhouse Chicken Flatbread sandwich, featuring egg whites, maple chicken sausage, cheddar cheese and caramelized onions. Additionally, the menu now features a Kickin' Chicken breakfast sandwich, with egg whites, maple chicken sausage, hot pepper cheese and habanero peppers on an English muffin.
6. McDonald's Chicken McGriddle
McDonald’s introduced the Chicken McGriddle as a limited-time offer in Ohio and Florida that’s still going. The breakfast sandwich features a fried chicken patty between two maple-flavored pancakes. The LTO uses products already in the system and requires no new SKUs, and if the social-media buzz proves true, it should eventually roll out nationally on the all-day breakfast menu.
7. Wendy's Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit
McDonald’s isn’t the only fast-food giant getting into chicken for breakfast. In 2016, Wendy’s introduced a Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, which Eater declared “the best breakfast sandwich of all time.” The sandwich starts with a buttered biscuit, which is layered with a crispy chicken fillet and slathered with honey butter.
8. Athens' Alarm Cluck Sandwich
The Alarm “Cluck” Sandwich at the small Athens Family Restaurant chain in Nashville takes chicken in a slightly healthier direction. It includes blackened spicy grilled chicken breast topped with two eggs over hard, Swiss cheese, rosemary aioli, lettuce and tomato on toast.
9. Party Fowl's Chicken and Stuffed French Toast
Party Fowl, another Nashville-based restaurant, transforms a local signature—hot chicken—into a breakfast item, pairing it with stuffed French toast. Thick-cut brioche French toast is dipped in an egg mixture perked up with orange zest, then stuffed with cream cheese and apples caramelized in local bourbon. Party Fowl customers don’t have to go Nashville hot—they also can choose Southern fried, mild or medium preps for their chicken.
10. Breakfast Republic's Chicken Wing Breakfast Bowls
Vietnamese chicken-wing breakfast bowls are a specialty at four-unit Breakfast Republic based in San Diego. Listed in the breakfast scrambles section of the menu, the bowls combine sweet and spicy wings served over white rice, served with Asian veggies and three eggs.