Fastest-Growing Breakfast Ingredients

Here we look at the fastest-growing breakfast ingredients on Canadian menus over the latest year-over-year period.

By a significant margin, pico de gallo is the fastest growing ingredient, up 90.0%. This is not surprising as Mexican entrees are one of the fastest-growing breakfast mains, rising 21.1% in menu incidence. Concepts are using this ethnic ingredient to offer a bold, yet familiar flavour to scrambles, wraps and eggs Benedicts. For instance, Chili’s Texas Grill recently added Chili’s Breakfast Scramble to its menu, which features pico de gallo as a topping.

Another growing Mexican ingredient is chorizo, increasing by 43.8%. Chorizo adds heat and smoky flavour to a variety of traditional breakfast dishes such as omelettes, skillets and wraps. For example, Ben & Florentine offers the Portuguese Omelette, which includes chorizo with grilled red peppers.

With consumers expressing that it’s more important that breakfast fare is filling (55%) or energizing (49%) than craveable (38%)*, enter chia, kale and black beans. All three fast-growing ingredients are high in fiber and protein, conveying health, quality and satiety to consumers. Operators are especially adding kale and chia seeds to smoothies, and black beans to burritos. For instance, Eggsmart’s Southwest Breakfast Burrito contains black beans along with bacon and various vegetables.

*Source: 2017 Canadian Breakfast Consumer Trend Report