Foodservice Trends as 2022 Begins

CHICAGO — Morning meals, menu updates and more. What’s trending in foodservice? Aimee Harvey, senior managing editor at Technomic, CSP’s sister research company, recently presented the webinar “What’s Trending Now?”

Click through for some of the highlights …

Dayparts are more than breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“Look at all the snacking occasions,” Harvey said. “This isn’t just about three dayparts. We’re also talking about different occasions; all of the snacking occasions through the day are receiving solid patronage and purchases.”

For example, per Technomic Ignite menu data, when asked during which dayparts they bought a foodservice item at a convenience store in the past month, 29% of respondents (1,000 c-stores customers surveyed in Q3 2021) said breakfast, 33% lunch and 16% dinner. However, 35% said morning snack, 50% afternoon snack, 24% evening snack and 12% late-night snack.

“Who is the afternoon snacker?” she asked. “That’s definitely the younger Gen Z consumer coming out of junior high or high school.”

Meal kits, checking in with 17 menu instances, are the fastest growing dishes in quick-service restaurants (QSRs), Technomic found by looking at 9,593 menu items across 154 operators.

“Seventeen is not a whole lot of menu items, but it still represents 70% growth over the same time last year,” Harvey said. This means QSRs recognize there’s a need for at-home, off-premise preparation and assembly of food, and they’re able to accomplish that with meal kits, she said. “We’re seeing growth of that particularly at Mexican-style chains and sandwich chains.”

The rationale behind meal kits at c-stores, she added, includes satisfying off-premise need states for dinner and showcasing the versatility of c-stores with advanced foodservice programs. Harvey cautioned that there are hurdles for c-stores: packaging and staffing needs, as well as building trust that a meal kit program can be well-executed.

In second place among the fastest growing dishes at QSRs is breakfast value meals, and three of the top eight spots are various bowl meals.

Thirty percent of convenience-store operators expect growth in breakfast sales in the next six months, Harvey said, and breakfast value meals have grown 66% at QSRs from Q3 2020 to Q3 2021, per Technomic Ignite menu data.

Value meals can spark morning daypart visits, Harvey said, and create a new way to promote beverages.

Waffles are an item to be considered, as they’ve shown 7% year-over-year growth and promote menu differentiation.

“Everyone’s doing biscuits, or everyone’s doing English muffins,” she said. “This (waffle) is a new sandwich carrier. This is an opportunity to add a new flavor element. Customers are gravitating toward this.”

Cauliflower rice is the fastest-growing ingredient at QSRs, with more than 50% growth in menu incidence. For c-stores, offering cauliflower rice offers a trendy base for new bowls, helps differentiate sides and promotes a healthy vibe, Harvey said.

“There’s a health push,” she said. “Some want to do away with carbs, whether it’s on the side or in the base of a bowl meal. Bowl meals are really accelerating, but you will have those customers who don’t want rice, potatoes or noodles on the bottom. There are lots of flavor adaptions that cauliflower rice can connect to and take on the flavor of, so it’s a very versatile item.”

Caribbean is the fastest-growing flavor at QSRs. “At the top is all tropical fruity flavors that have grown by about 20%, simply described as Caribbean,” Harvey said. Going down the list leads to denser flavors, such as cookies and creams, s’mores and double chocolate, “that really start to remind you of fall. There’s lots of richness and depth of flavor coming through, not just for food but also for drinks.”

In third place is toasted almond. “The application here for c-stores is there’s lots of opportunities to promote this type of rich flavor, whether talking about baked goods or hot and iced coffees,” she said.

Harvey also touched on c-store brands that are already doing well as trendsetters, highlighting:

• Waltham, Mass.-based Alltown Fresh’s meal-kit program that competes head to head with supermarket catering programs via its Thanksgiving dinner holiday meal.
• Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go’s bowl meals (pictured) that include grain bases, braised meats and fresh toppings and sauces.
• Wawa, Pa.-based Wawa goes beyond standard coffee and soft drinks and received kudos for its dispensed beverage innovations that emphasize specialty and seasonal beverages as LTOs. Harvey mentioned smoothies, slushies, frozen lemonades and the chain’s “Refreshers,” which are iced beverages that come in six flavors.

C-stores are building momentum in foodservice and should have more opportunities as daily routines become more normalized in coming months, Harvey said. However, there are hurdles, such as supply chain, staffing, pandemic variants and cost issues.

To grow sales in the morning, areas that c-stores should focus on include speed, price and portability.

With foodservice in general, innovation should focus on healthy grab-and-go, organic and natural, and globally inspired dishes.