HOLE TO FILL

Firm says people have been asking for the addition, a billion-dollar category, to join breakfast lineup

McDonald’s starts serving bagels with butter or cream cheese as fast food breakfast wars intensify,

Alongside the Egg McMuffins, hash browns and hotcakes that have been on McDonald’s menus for years, consumers who visit the fast-food giant’s restaurants this week spot something new on the menu boards.

McDonald’s Canada started serving bagels at its restaurants across the country Thursday, following a four-month pilot in Ontario.

The product addition signals an intensification of breakfast wars in Canada as eateries compete to earn dollars associated with the first meal of the day. In recent years, McDonald’s and A&W put pressure on competitors when they expanded breakfast from a short window to all day, putting them head-tohead with offerings from Tim Hortons, Starbucks, Country Style and even Taco Bell and Burger King.

It’s a high-stakes competition. Breakfast is the fastest-growing part of the day for restaurants since 2012, according to research companies NPD Group and Nielsen, and breakfast sandwiches make up a third of all orders placed during that time of day. McDonald’s plans to sell bagels in a variety of flavours: original, cinnamon and raisin, everything and multigrain. In Quebec, where con- sumers favour sesame bagels, the company will swap it with the everything variety. Customers can choose between two types of cream cheese or butter to smear on the bagels.

“Our goal is to grow our breakfast business,” said Anne Parks, the director of McCafé menu management for McDonald’s Canada.

“We know bagels are a billiondollar category with over 290 million servings (per year) and it is something our guests have been asking for, so the time is right.”

McDonald’s menu expansion comes as one of its biggest breakfast rivals, Tim Hortons, and some of its franchisees are engaged in a public battle that’s resulted in multiple lawsuits between an unsanctioned franchisee group and the chain’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International (RBI). One alleges the company improperly used national advertising funding and delays in the delivery of restaurant supplies. RBI denies the allegations and they have not been proven in court.

Parks denied McDonald’s bagel launch was timed to take advantage of its competitor’s troubles, stressing it came about due to customer demand and the results of a survey McDonald’s and research company VIGA conducted.

It found that 53 per cent of Canadians that tried McDonald’s bagels and were surveyed would recommend them to a friend, she said, and that 61 per cent would order a coffee with their bagel.

“This is our journey,” Parks repeatedly said. “We launched coffee quite a few years ago and it has been very well received by guests. And then we moved into all-day breakfast, which was the next phase of the journey, and what we learned through consumer research is the perfect food that goes with coffee is bagels. So that was the next phase.”

“What we learned through consumer research is the perfect food that goes with coffee is bagels.” ANNE PARKS DIRECTOR OF MCCAFÉ MENU MANAGEMENT