Food-forward convenience stores are becoming a morning staple for a growing number of consumers, market research firm Circana finds.
According to the company's U.S. C-Store Landscape Q2 2025 report, morning meal trips at convenience stores were up by 1% over the last three-month period. Breakfast trips now account for 25% of all convenience store food purchases.
"Over the long run, convenience stores have taken share, really at foodservice overall, but the morning meal has been their strong suit," Circana Senior Vice President and Foodservice Industry Advisor David Portalatin told CNBC.
Don't Miss:
- Kevin O'Leary Loves ‘Wonderful Recurring Cash Flows' — These Small Industrial Assets Deliver Just That
- An EA Co-Founder Shapes This VC Backed Marketplace—Now You Can Invest in Gaming's Next Big Platform
Portalatin says that 87% of consumers eat and drink at home in the morning. While that percentage is large, it still leaves quite a bit of market share for quick service restaurants and food-forward convenience stores.
For decades, quick service chains like McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) and its counterparts dominated breakfast sales, CNBC reports. However, as prices have gone up and budgets have gotten tighter, many have scaled back their spending and traffic to these restaurants has been declining. According to restaurant advising platform Revenue Management Services, quick service breakfast visits were down 8.7% in Q2.
"The breakfast daypart is the most economically sensitive daypart because it's the easiest daypart for a stress consumer to either skip breakfast or choose to to eat breakfast, at home," McDonald's CEO Chris Kemczynski said during the company's Q2 2025 earnings call in August. And we, as well as the rest of the industry, are seeing that the breakfast daypart is absolutely the weakest daypart in the day," he said.
Trending: Bezos' Favorite Real Estate Platform Launches A Way To Ride The Ongoing Private Credit Boom
Meanwhile, convenience stores have seen an increase in morning sales. Many consumers stop in the morning to fill up on gas, which gives the retailers an opportunity to sell them breakfast.
While buying a breakfast sandwich or cup of coffee at a convenience store may still cost more than making it at home, many consumers see it as getting a "good bang for their buck," Sarah Beckett, vice president of sales and marketing at customer service solution provider Intouch Insight, told CNBC.
Circana's Portalatin agrees, but says price isn't enough to keep consumers coming back day after day. "While [a] convenience store broadly does have some tailwind from being a lower price point, the ultimate differentiator, and what's really going to set apart the winners from losers, is that quality aspect of it," he said.
See Also: Backed by $300M+ in Assets and Microsoft's Climate Fund, Farmland LP Opens Vital Farmland III to Accredited Investors
National Association of Convenience Stores spokesperson Jeff Lenard told CNBC that quick service restaurants looking to increase their number of breakfast visits would do well to take a page out of convenience stores' book.
"″[Quick-service restaurants] are looking at late-night sales and early morning sales, and they are directly looking at convenience stores and saying, ‘What is working? How can we bring that to our stores?'" he said.
Read Next: Shaquille O'Neal Wants People to Take Heart Health Seriously — This AI-ECG Could Make That Easier
Image: Shutterstock
