Why McAlister's is betting on breakfast catering

McAlister's Deli is putting its eggs in its breakfast basket, completely relaunching the catering program since its 2022 launch.

"Between 2019 and 2022, the industry saw a 70% surge in catering spend amongst consumers," Chief Brand Officer Mike Freeman told FastCasual in an email interview. "The gradual return of the workforce to offices after the COVID-19 pandemic presented a new opportunity for us to capitalize on catering sales. (Our) catering services have shown outstanding performance across all dayparts, so we expanded our successful strategies to generate additional revenue and introduce a new option for early-morning catering in office buildings, schools and similar venues. We have built a lot of equity in lunch catering, and by launching new catering bundles, we are simplifying the ordering experience for guests while introducing popular menu items that excite and satisfy our customers."

Seeking to replicate the equity of its built-in lunch catering, Freeman said the goals were for the breakfast catering relaunch were to:

• Create exciting choices without adding new SKUs.
• Tackle packaging with supply chain partners for a breakfast bar approach.

The result includes four breakfast boxes — Breakfast Florentine with eggs, cheese and spinach; Spicy Sausage & Egg, Breakfast Club Royale and Breakfast Veggie — served with Greek yogurt and fresh fruit. Customers may also order sandwiches of eggs with bacon, sausage or ham. All sandwiches are available as trays as well as individual boxes.

Other breakfast catering options include a customizable Avocado Toast Bar, which features French baguette, cut into slices and accompanied by avocado spread with diced cooked bacon, diced tomatoes, cucumber slices, red onion and gorgonzola cheese as well as a customizable French Toast Bar. It comes with French baguette sliced and dipped in batter and arrives cooked with fresh fruit and berries, diced cooked bacon, candied almonds, maple syrup and butter.

"Guest expectations are constantly evolving, and because consumer demand for breakfast catering is strong, we have to balance their preferences with the needs of the business to drive profitability for our franchisees," Freeman said. "The introduction of breakfast catering enables us to offer an enticing array of new menu items that simultaneously deliver freshness, value, quality and speed for our customers."

Tackling supply chain issues

Despite the ongoing challenges of supply chain shortages, Freeman said the chain adapted its strategy to introduce a fresh take on the traditional McAlister's Deli catering box.

"We used our traditional individual boxed lunch packaging as a guide for how we wanted our larger catering packaging to look," he said. " We introduced craft packaging complete with McAlister's Deli branding to be consistent in how our catering orders are presented to customers — no matter the daypart. To do this, we were able to successfully leverage our key relationships with vendors and suppliers to harness the resources of our 500-plus restaurants in 29 states, developing an innovative and eco-friendly breakfast box tailored to the specific needs of our customers. In addition to the new look, we have made comprehensive improvements to our catering packaging, incorporating new sandwich window bags, box inserts and shifted from plastic trays to craft boxes to elevate the overall catering experience."

Since the project's relaunch, Freeman said breakfast catering sales are showing double-digit year-over-year increases.

"The greatest obstacle for us was creating exciting choices without adding additional SKUs, and our new breakfast menu has successfully tackled this challenge," he said. "As we move forward, our goal is to continue growing our catering business in all dayparts, while also exploring new opportunities to leverage our menu items for additional occasions, like snacking."

The enhanced breakfast catering menu will be available in all locations by the end of August. Owned by Atlanta-based Focus Brands, McAlister's Deli has nearly 600 locations.