Breakfast has become increasingly profitable for c-stores over the past few years — and the momentum is projected to continue in 2025.
“Breakfast in general is popular at c-stores because c-stores are designed to typically offer more grab and go offerings,” said Katie Belflower, manager of menu research and insights at Technomic.
The number of breakfast items on c-store menus grew 7.2% year over year in Q3 of 2024, according to Technomic Ignite Menu data, compared to 1.1% growth on overall menus. C-stores are the top foodservice segment for breakfast, with 100% of c-stores that Technomic tracks offering breakfast.
Love’s plans to grow its breakfast offerings this year via its Fresh Kitchen concept and by adding Dunkin' Donuts and other QSRs that serve breakfast, according to Greg Ekman, director of Fresh Kitchen strategy and growth at Love's.
Below, experts shared their thoughts on what items, flavors, tactics and concepts will play an important part in growing the breakfast daypart throughout 2025.
Portable, craveable items drive sales
The breakfast foods and beverages that show up the most on c-store menus are sausage breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos, bacon-based breakfast sandwiches and coffee, Technomic found. Sandwich combos are also the fastest-growing dish on breakfast menus across foodservice as a whole, according to Emily Murawski, research and insights manager at Datassential.
“For travelers, portable and easy to consume items like breakfast sandwiches and tacos continue to be high-demand products,” Ekman noted.
At the end of last year, Love’s revamped its breakfast taco options, including adding salsa verde to a few of them and introducing a steakhouse breakfast taco.
Sandwich combos jumped up 52% on all breakfast menus over the year ending September 2024, according to Datassential. Soufflés, which includes egg dishes and soufflé pancakes, also hiked up 54%, followed by the caprese category which includes egg-based foods like benedicts and omelettes, which soared 44%.
“Most of these trending dishes can be surprisingly portable and therefore a good fit for c-stores,” Murawski said. For example, Caribou Coffee offers to-go-friendly souffles, as does Panera Bread.
“Even omelette trends have c-store applications, like in Wawa's portable Snack & Go Wraps that currently feature flavors like Egg & Cheese & Hot Honey Bacon, Egg, & Cheese,” Murawski said.
The fastest-growing ingredients at c-store breakfast are traditional breakfast offerings such as toast, biscuits and croissants, according to Technomic.
Value remains top-of-mind in 2025
QSRs and c-stores both leaned into value last year and that is continuing this year — including at breakfast.
EG America rolled out a $3 breakfast value meal to its Fastrac c-stores in upstate New York as well as its Cumberland Farms locations in New England. The deal includes a sausage, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich on a croissant and any size hot or iced coffee. Rewards customers can add a hashbrown for $1. Weigel’s $6 value combo menu also includes several breakfast options.
Consumers are still on guard against growing inflation according to survey data from the University of Michigan.
But offering good value means more than just offering the lowest price, said Philip Santini, senior director of advertising & food service at Rutter’s. Reaching foodservice customers requires balancing “quality, convenience, and variety,” he said.
As a result, Rutter’s is adding bundle deals with a breakfast sandwich, hot coffee, and a side of hash browns for $6 this year.
Serve up bold flavors, like hot honey
Murawski expects to see more creative applications of global ingredients and flavors in c-store breakfast offerings, especially on more classic or standard options.
By adding unique global sauces and ingredients, operators can amp up classics like breakfast sandwiches and add creativity to their offerings without having to go through total menu overhauls, Murawski added.
That is exactly what Rutter’s executives plan to do.
“Recently, we’ve focused on breakfast items that incorporate classic offerings with unexpected twists,” Santini said.
Offering innovative items and unique LTOs is “incredibly important” to Rutter’s breakfast sales, and the company is making that a key focus for 2025, Santini said. This has included such items as the Kickin’ Chicken and Waffle sandwich and the cinnamon breakfast sandwich.
Hot honey has grown 1% on foodservice breakfast menus over the past year, reaching 2.2% menu penetration across foodservice. Notably, QuickChek’s bacon, egg, and cheese hot honey biscuit LTO last year garnered a 'Superstar' rating with high marks from consumers, according to Datassential's Launches & Ratings platform.
“Hot honey is growing as part of other dishes, too, like chicken and waffles, breakfast sliders, and more,” Murawski said.
Consumers are looking for other spicy flavors as well. Chili oil flavors in breakfast grew 27%, red chile sauce rose 41%, Calabrian chili pepper grew 13% and chipotle mayo also rose 13%, according to Datassential.
Oreo cookie and tres leches are the top growing sweet flavors, rising 27% and 28%, respectively. The flavors are showing up in dishes like French toast and pancakes, and could translate to more portable c-store bakery concepts such as donuts or mini pancakes, Murawski advised.
Waking up with energy drinks
The fastest-growing item at c-store breakfast, according to Technomic, is energy drinks, sporting a spike of 175% over the past year, “perhaps as a caffeine alternative to coffee,” Belflower opined.
Hot coffee remains the top beverage consumers are looking for, and c-stores are responding. Coffee has risen 7.2% on c-store menus over the past year, versus 1.4% on overall foodservice menus, according to Technomic data.
Wawa recently said that hot coffee is the most popular reward redeemed from its loyalty program. As a result, it rolled out value deals such as $1 hot coffee, $2 iced coffee and $3 Monster energy drinks for reward members from Jan. 6 through Feb. 16.
Tea has also shot up 8.9% on c-store menus over the past year, according to Technomic, with hot tea rising 18.2% and iced tea growing 9.1%. QuickChek started off 2025 by introducing a matcha latte.
It also added a line of protein smoothies in a bid to appeal to a growing number of shoppers looking for functional ingredients in their drinks.
