The race is on to get that breakfast customer. Whether in the morning or all day long by extending egg hours, chains are working their menus, signs, and ads to rake in the bacon.

As the usual quick-serve and fast-casual players compete on the breakfast sandwich and wrap front, they are being blindsided by emerging competition from the awaking morning giants Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. It was only a matter of time. Even Subway is getting its breakfast bearings, and Jamba Juice finally woke up and smelled the coffee.

But in the rush to get out there and be noticed, someone has been underserved. “I think a lot of quick-serve restaurants have added breakfast sandwiches to be in direct competition with other quick-serve restaurants. Someone needs to lead the pack by creating healthier breakfast items, and others will follow,” says Maria Caranfa, director of Chicago’s Mintel Menu Insights.

After all, consumers say they want to be able to purchase healthier meals. At least that’s what 57 percent said in a recent Mintel poll when asked what their most desired food options were to add to quick-serve restaurants. “Healthy meals” was second only to “fresh ingredients” mentioned by 63 percent.

Breakfast Shares

There’s a lot of potential in the early hours, no doubt. Breakfast only accounted for 11 percent of total meal occasions among quick-serve outlets and 15 percent among fast-casual restaurants in 2006, according to the “State of Breakfast in Fast-Food and Casual Dining Restaurants 2007,” put out by marketing research and consulting firm Sandelman & Associates.

“From that, we gather that quick-serve and fast-casual breakfast is relatively flat in terms of how many occasions there are to go around,” says CEO Bob Sandelman. He notes, Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts were not counted in the study, as they were not breakfast players at the time.

McDonald’s leads the breakfast pack, gobbling up 40 percent of quick-serve breakfast occasions, Sandelman adds. The reason, he believes, is convenience. Most quick-serve breakfasts (72 percent) are eaten off premises by consumers on the run, and by number, McDonald’s is pretty handy. Plus, the chain has been at breakfast for a long time, Sandelman says.

The need for speed makes portable breakfasts more important to consumers than the quest for healthy fare. Not to mention, Sandelman notes, that there’s nothing healthy about the standard American breakfast, which is characterized by fatty meats, biscuit- and muffin-based breads, syrup, eggs, and hashed browns. Hello cholesterol, flour, and sugar.

But still, for the sake of offering options, eliminating the veto factor, and being a good quick-serve or casual-dining citizen, some are finding it’s important to have a good-for-you presence at breakfast.

Burger King, for one, is developing something more healthy for breakfast, although Patty Trevino, senior manager of product marketing, isn’t ready to divulge details. It should be out sometime in 2008. “We wanted an option in keeping with our salads and veggie burgers, so we’re also looking to expand healthy options into that daypart,” she says.

Nutritious breakfast has its challenges, says Burger King nutritionist Julie Haugen. Healthier items often must be refrigerated, so refrigerator space and the complexity of putting something together by a teenage staff must be taken into consideration. “Then there’s consumer preferability. How likely are they to come to Burger King to buy the product,” she says. Will the product appeal to a different market segment like moms or kids, and will the Burger King “superfan” like it?