Taco Bell is sticking with the playbook that helped it muscle into the breakfast business last year: Take a breakfast sandwich, and put it in a taco.
The fast-food chain will introduce a new line of Biscuit Tacos, which wrap taco-shaped biscuits around fillings such as chicken and gravy, at its more than 6,000 US restaurants on Thursday as part of an expanded morning menu.
Breakfast traffic at US restaurants has grown for four years straight, and fast-food chains have been trying take market share from McDonald’s, the morning leader. Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum! Brands, joined the fray about a year ago with waffle tacos, egg burritos and the A.M. Crunchwrap. Breakfast now accounts for about 6 per cent of Taco Bell’s sales, and the new items are designed to draw customers away from rivals, said Brian Niccol, Taco Bell’s chief executive officer.
“We have a lot of Taco Bell users who are already eating breakfast in the food-food industry,” Niccol said in an interview. “We still have a big opportunity on getting people aware that Taco Bell is open for breakfast.”
For McDonald’s, the maker of the Egg McMuffin, breakfast accounts for about 25 per cent of the company’s sales. Taco Bell has taken aim at the Egg McMuffin in advertisements, suggesting the sandwich is outdated. Starbucks Corp., meanwhile, has been expanding its breakfast-sandwich offerings as it tries to double food sales to $4 billion by 2019.
Bloomberg News, edited by Hospitality Ireland
