BURP!!!!!!! Sorry, I just had a bunch of breakfast meals at fast food restaurants this week as research for this blog post. I think I gained another five pounds but I didn’t spend that much money. Breakfast meals seem to be the most inexpensive purchase you can make at any fast food restaurant these days. Besides, Mom always used to say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Skip lunch and dinner if you have to skip a meal.  After this week, I feel that I should have skipped breakfast too. They should give out Tums like candy after eating that greasy messy stuff.

According to some reports, breakfast is becoming the most lucrative meal to prepare at fast food restaurants.  Americans are spending more money in the morning than ever before.  It seems that all the chain’s want   a piece of that bacon.  What happened to the days when Mom or Dad woke up early to make sure all the kids had a good hot breakfast before they went to school?  I guess those days   died along with the morning paper being delivered and read before your 9 to 5 job.  The reality now is that people work all sorts of shifts.  Dad leaves early while Mom stays in bed talking to her lover   on the phone till the kids are late for the bus and when she is driving them to school, maybe because having to stop speeding because of a   red light causing her to pause, she might make a right turn into the drive through long enough to throw a couple of bags of something resembling breakfast food into the back seat for the best catcher to have a decent breakfast.

Now   McDonald's and Taco Bell are in a bitter advertising battle fighting for your   morning breakfast meal money.  Taco Bell found real guys whose name is Ronald   McDonald and had them do commercials attesting to how wonderful Taco Bell’s breakfast is.  The commercials are very funny.  Rarely have you seen competitors trashing each other   this way other than politicians are on their way to Election Day.  On the Internet we will find a cartoon showing the Taco Bell Chihuahua   biting the heels of the   McDonald’s clown in a boxing   rink.  Taco Bell just opened up early a few weeks ago to serve breakfast.  They are selling things called a Waffle Taco, a Steak and Egg  Baretto  and  a AM Crunch Wrap.  Taco Bell has another advertisement showing a guy eating Egg McMuffins since 1984.  To update him they give him a new cell phone, cut off his mullet hair style, and give him new   Taco Bell breakfast to eat.  I wonder if all these attacks at one company will really improve Taco   Bell’s bottom line profit   numbers?

How did a chain of stores that usually serves Mexican Food think   they could take on a giant like McDonald’s?  The breakfast industry makes thirty two billion dollars per year just on their   breakfast items alone.  Other fast food chains in the breakfast game include places like Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts as well as places that don’t usually have a drive through like Starbucks and Subway.  McDonald’s  gets about 20% of its sales from breakfast.  The giant clown makes about 10 Billion dollars from breakfast alone per year. Taco Bell makes only 7.6 Billion dollars per year from total sales.  Those tiny dogs are  always arrogant with people much bigger than them. Hayley Peterson, a Retail Reporter from the Business Insider says that she thinks that Taco Bell can chip away at McDonald’s market share and the giant is  worried .

Taco Bell has been working on its morning menu for seven years. Chris Brandit, Chief Marketing Officer of Taco Bell says, they thought that breakfast was really boring and they want to shake up the routine.  I think they just really need a boost in sales.  The big winner here is the female head of Cinnabon who has Taco Bell selling a not so sticky version of her delights in all their stores.  Taco Bell has a new coffee line and made sure that all their items can be held in one hand.  Do you think they are encouraging you to eat while you’re driving? Ssssh but sure. McDonald's is worried.  They even  offered free coffee during breakfast hours to its customers for about two weeks.  The giant offered a marketing blitz by putting on a concert in Times Square in Manhattan and organized a flash mob in Chicago to continue the buzz over McDonald’s breakfast products and take the attention away from Taco Bell.

The giant is worried because they know that traffic during the breakfast hours has been steadily increasing while the traffic during lunch and dinner hours has been declining year over year.  So why breakfast?  I think it is because it is the cheapest meal you can get outside of a  snack.  Consumers are still tight with their money after the recession.  All the fans food chains seem to be chasing after a piece of that breakfast pie.  Just weeks ago Dunkin Donuts revealed its new Eggs Benedict Sandwich.  Last month Starbucks came out with new items like its Egg and Cheddar Sandwich and its new and improved reduced fat Turkey Bacon Breakfast Sandwich.  The newest entry into the breakfast wars have healthy options too.  But Taco Bell is not going healthy by offering a 700 calorie Taco Crunch first thing in the morning.  Gosh I’m still burping.