The road to better breakfast sales begins by innovating with one’s offerings while retaining aspects of the familiar.
In other words, retailers can experiment—but only so much.
At the Lincoln, Nebraska-based 40-store chain U-Stop Convenience Shops, breakfast is an integral part of its business, said Maddie Whitehead, director of foodservice operations at the chain, which has locations in Kansas and Nebraska.
“We find that with our customers in particular, they’re a lot more likely to come in right before work to grab breakfast food and their coffee,” Whitehead said. “We want to make sure we’re putting in consistent products that our customers really enjoy and count on to start their day off right.”
While being consistent, Whitehead also is trying to be innovative and fun and tap into recent trends.
“I often look at my warmer and ask myself, ‘Is there anything we’re missing that we can still utilize ingredients we have in the back of the kitchen but create something different and unique to keep the customer coming to the warmer?’ Because if the customers see the same eight or nine items in the warmer every day, they may get bored of some of those options,” she said.
‘All the different varieties sitting in the warmer are right as you come into the store—six-tiered warmers around 7 feet tall.’
There are eight stores with U-Stop’s grab-and-go Jeannie’s Express, and two of those also have the made-to-order Jeannie’s Kitchen concept. There’s also one Jeannie’s Cafe, a small sit-down diner offering all three dayparts with a full menu.
Grab-and-go breakfast offerings include breakfast pizzas, egg and cheese croissants with bacon or sausage, various biscuits and breakfast burritos. The breakfast pizza features a gravy-based sausage, crumbled eggs, bacon bits and mozzarella cheese. There also is coffee and pastries.
In the Midwest, people gravitate more toward grab and go, Whitehead said, adding the reason for U-Stop’s success in breakfast might be because when developing new stores with Jeannie’s Express.
“Our team has done an excellent job with product placement with foodservice,” she said. “All the different varieties sitting in the warmer are right as you come into the store—six-tiered warmers around 7 feet tall.”
Whitehead adds, “It’s almost like an impulse buy.”
Meanwhile, U-Stop has targeted its two made-to-order locations in stores where there’s not much competition—and so customers are more willing to wait.
One of the made-to-order locations is near an apartment and casino community lacking restaurants and fast-food outlets, and the community atmosphere leads to people being more easygoing and having time to kill, she said.
Another detriment to made-to-order is an in-store kiosk ordering system U-Stop uses that’s “a little bit cumbersome for our customers,” Whitehead said, adding that they’ll be looking at upgrading this system down the road to boost sales.
“We have been focusing so hard on the Express component to our business,” Whitehead said.
Going big with burritos
Two c-store chains, Freshies and Global Partners, have leaned into the versatility of the breakfast burrito.
Freshies, a 22-store chain owned by Hampden, Maine-based R.H. Foster Energy, sells an array of more standard c-store breakfast offerings. Before 2024, Freshies was serving two homemade burritos: a maple bacon burrito and a sausage burrito, said Jessica Thompson, foodservice category manager.
In 2024, it added a chorizo burrito and regular bacon burrito, and the chorizo is now the second most popular burrito in all of Freshies’ stores, next to the sausage burrito.
The two burritos added in early 2024 increased Freshies’ breakfast burrito sales by 39% from January 2024 to December 2024, Thompson said.
“We didn’t think anyone would really like a lot of that [chorizo] flavor up here in Maine, but we do have a lot of construction workers up here, and tourists, who along with commuters and regulars really want something with flavor—a little bit of spice and kick,” she said.
‘You can put anything in a tortilla and call it a burrito.’
Breakfast burritos also are coming to the menu at Waltham, Massachusetts-based Global Partners’ core stores, which include XtraMart, Honey Farms, Jiffy Mart, T-Bird, Mr. Mike’s, Fast Freddie’s and others, said Jac Moskalik, vice president of culinary services and innovation.
Breakfast burritos already are being sold in the company’s Alltown Fresh stores, but Global Partners wants to “keep growing that breakfast daypart,” Moskalik said. While Global Partners has limited-time offers, it pays particular attention to breakfast LTOs. “We have at least a quarterly LTO on breakfast, if not monthly,” she said.
Burritos are an “amazing” option for people who are driving, particularly if the burrito is wrapped in the right packaging, she said, adding burritos are popular now because they’re extremely versatile.
“You can put anything in a tortilla and call it a burrito,” she said. “It opens yourself up to a bunch of LTOs and being able to transition ingredients in and out of your menu.”
She adds that the burrito is “handheld and a comfort food—and you can customize your burritos to where the customer would want to drive the extra mile to get your burrito because of something you do different.”
Power of protein
At Freshies, burritos also play to commuters, fishers and people traveling to Bar Harbor, Maine, for the day, Thompson said.
“They tend to stop at our locations, load up in the morning and head out. They want more protein, something that’s going to hold them over,” she said.
They’re also different than what the competition offers, Thompson said, noting McDonald’s smaller breakfast burritos.
‘We’re getting more people early in the morning before breakfast. They’re loading up for breakfast and for lunch.’
Freshies’ burritos, all priced at $5.99 for simplicity, are doing so well that they’re overtaking sandwiches now, Thompson said. Because of this, the company on May 1 introduced a limited-time maple fried chicken breakfast biscuit sandwich to try to boost their breakfast sandwiches, she said.
Thompson said the breakfast category is improving and growing.
“We’re getting more people early in the morning before breakfast,” she said. “They’re loading up for breakfast and for lunch.”
Thinking health
While some are looking for a hefty burrito for breakfast, others want lighter options.
Thompson said she’s seeing an increasing demand for fresher, healthier options, like yogurt parfaits with fresh fruit or granola.
Selling healthier items also is top of mind at Global Partners, which has been cleaning up its ingredients, Moskalik said.
“We’ve converted all of our breakfast ingredients to clean label, and we’re in the process of sourcing local ingredients to start incorporating into our condiment bars,” she said.
‘We want our consumers to feel like there’s a piece of home inside of our stores, and so it’s going to be brands they recognize, or it might even be somebody they know in their community.’
Global Partners strives to use locally sourced ingredients to support the communities in which its stores operate, Moskalik said.
“We want our consumers to feel like there’s a piece of home inside of our stores, and so it’s going to be brands they recognize, or it might even be somebody they know in their community.
“The goal is to create a warm environment where people recognize the brands that we use, and it shows we’re supporting our communities in a different way that’s not normal in convenience,” she adds.
Moskalik thinks c-store breakfast, Global Partners’ largest daypart, will continue to grow.
“As the younger shoppers are being introduced to breakfast, I could see it being expanded throughout the day. I could see breakfast being carried all day on certain items if they’re a home run—because it’s a comfort food,” she said.
Younger generations—Gen Z, millennial, beta—will start driving innovation in breakfast, “which I’m excited about,” she said.
Breakfast is no longer just a standard breakfast sandwich, she said, adding, “It’s more like, ‘Where did my ingredients come from? How much protein is this? Who are the producers of these items? How was it made? What’s the story behind it?’”
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