Starbucks said it’s planning to introduce warm sandwiches to its breakfast menu in the next week, The Associated Press reported.
Additionally, smoothie chain Jamba Juice is expanding its offerings with a new breakfast menu offering a lineup of on-the-go products containing granola, yogurt and chunks of fruit, the New York Post reported.
About 80% of Jamba Juice customers are “light users,” meaning they stop by only a couple of times a month, according to the New York Post. “Breakfast is the most habitual meal of the day,” Paul Coletta, Jamba’s head of marketing and brand development, told The Post.
About 18% of Jamba’s business is already done around the breakfast daypart, compared with about 11% at other QSRs.
“If we can inspire more customers to come during breakfast . . . we can increase [customer frequency],” Coletta said.
The Post reported that Jamba’s breakfast push comes amid worries about recent pushes by rivals like Dunkin’ Donuts and possibly McDonald’s, which has been thinking about selling smoothies.
Coletta said the new breakfast menu is a reminder that what Jamba brings to the table is different. “We have a very strong emphasis on healthy,” she said.
Starbucks, meanwhile, is introducing a breakfast sandwich called a Piadini, which features artisan bread and is filled with either sausage, egg and cheese or portobello mushroom, spinach and ricotta cheese.
Starbucks is also adding ovens to 800 more stores, though the ovens are currently in about 3,000 locations. The retailer told the AP that, over time, the ovens will be in 90% of its stores.
The company recently changed the kind of cheese it was using in its warm breakfast sandwiches to neutralize the cooking smell, which it found interfered with the coffee aroma at its restaurants.
