03/14/07 Pork For Breakfast

Pork for breakfast, fast food style. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Burger King is unveiling a new pork breakfast sandwich. According to the Pork Checkoff Director of Food Service Marketing Jeff Pigott - the new sandwich is called the Hamlette. PIGOTT: This is going to be a new sliced ham item on their menu. We're excited about it for it's presence at breakfast but we're also really thrilled that this new ingredient that they bring into the restaurant for the morning can potentially be used for other sandwiches and other applications at lunch and dinner so that's something that we want to see expanded in their menu as well. Pork is a dominant meat at breakfast. From Sausage McMuffin to Breakfast Burritos - pork has a major influence on breakfast in the quick serve restaurants. Pigott says a variety of things are driving the buzz surrounding breakfast. PIGOTT: Couple of things are driving that. First, it is the day part right now that is the least well penetrated for food away from home. Right now 38% of lunches purchased at a restaurant; about 26% of dinner is purchased away from home. Only about 11 to 12% of breakfast is purchased away from home. So there's a tremendous amount of upside and obviously those folks that have restaurants want to squeeze every last dollar out of them they can and right now some of the major chains like McDonalds are looking to breakfast to support about 20 to 25% of their business so I think you'll see some chains that have not been offering breakfast in the last few years coming back to that segment and in fact we see that in a big way with folks like Wendy's this spring. Today's consumer wants something that is convenient and reasonably priced. Pigott says the Pork Checkoff works closely with the restaurant chains to help put pork on the menu. PIGOTT: We've worked with a number of the chains, Starbucks; we've been in contact with Subway and Wendy's as well on their efforts and sometimes it is in relation to concepting those new ideas of what could fit within their operational platform. Sometimes it's involving sourcing suppliers and helping them to find the right things that will meet their operational needs. It could be concepting support for how they might roll that out and promote it or support it within their employee ranks. Contact the Pork Checkoff Service Center for more information. Go to Pork-dot org or call 800-456-PORK. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.