Tims rolls out kids’ menu amid push to bring brand back to roots
Tim Hortons launched its first kids’ menu across Canada on Wednesday, an apparent attempt to claw families away from competitors such as McDonalds as the coffee behemoth works to rehabilitate its image.
The new menu of grilled cheeses, chicken strips and cream-cheese chicken wraps is part of a series of promised food innovations and comes as the brand starts to recuperate after a protracted battle with discontented franchisees.
“It’s a been a fun ride,” Tim Hortons president Alex Macedo said. “Actually, fun is probably the worst word I could use.”
The ongoing saga between the franchisees and Tim Hortons parent Restaurant Brands International Inc. bubbled up in September, when Tim Hortons locked the leader of the franchisee revolt out of his stores in Alberta, accusing him of breaking an agreement that forbids franchisees from publicly disparaging the brand.
David Hughes, then-president of the Great White North Franchisee Association, denied the allegation.
But this week, Macedo said relationships with franchises were on the mend, pointing to meetings across Canada and a plan for improving customer experience that he said took input from store owners. Franchisees, he said, will finish the year more profitable than last year. “We’re trying to go back to our roots and be the brand that everyone feels really good about in Canada,” he said. “When we drop the ball, people feel it.”
“We acknowledge that we had our shortcomings in communicating with our franchisees and some of the activations that we did,” he said. “We’re not out of the woods ... But we’re in a much better place than we were in the beginning of the year, no doubt.”
Macedo’s return to the Tim Hortons roots includes a revamped advertising strategy, which saw the chain fly the sole hockey team in Kenya to Canada to scrimmage with NHLers.
In addition to the kids’ menu — which will start in the U.S. later this month — Tims has recently unveiled all-day breakfast and announced a future replacement of its leaky coffee lid. Macedo also signalled plans to “innovate on coffee” but wouldn’t say what changes he hoped to make or new products he hoped to release.