Looks Like Everyone is Getting Into The Breakfast Business?

[mdlqcd...@yahoo.com]

Let Freedom Ring and Let Breakfast Reign and for God's sake improve
those quarterlies, because, shareholder's equity and profits are what
Wall Street is looking for. Sing the breakfast song with me over a hot
cup of coffee and a few items on the new breakfast menu. Every
Starbuck's Employee is now told that other coffee shops are no longer
their competition, instead it's McDonalds.
You see Starbucks knows that McDonalds has a loyal set of customers
who love their dark strong morning coffee, Warren Buffet is indeed
amongst them. Now Starbucks carries breakfast sandwiches too, for
$2.95 each and they are pretty darn good, much better than the rubbery
Egg McMuffin say consumers. But wait, hold you horses, Yum Corporation
owners of such brands as KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, will soon be
offering a breakfast menu also.
Del Taco, Carl's Jr./Hardees, Wendy's, Jack-n-the-Box are among some
of the fast food breakfast competitors that the Egg McMuffin and that
favored strong coffee must contend with under the golden arches. Yum
Corporation announced it is going to do something about it slumping
sales in the US. Motley Fools Investment Online News reports that Mr.
Novak of Yum stated in an interview that:

.. ..the U.S. division's transformation is being modeled after moves
made in the past few years at McDonald's Inc., which added healthy
options, better quality food and beverage choices to its menu. The
changes there led to far higher sales and profit at the nation's No. 1
hamburger chain in the past year.. ..those techniques, particularly
menu variety and healthier offerings, have already proved successful
in its mainland China division - the main driver of its growth in the
past year. At KFC restaurants in China, for example, the company
offers fish products and are testing a line of beef items. In the
U.S., the chain mainly sells fried chicken.

Will it work or is the fast food breakfast sub-sector already working
at full capacity supplying the demand? Will more choices to early
risers boost Yum Sales? Well, some analysts believe that if the stores
are already there and are closed in the mornings before 10 AM or 11:00
AM then they are missing selling opportunities of loyal customers.
Meanwhile, branding experts are not so sure that the KFC play will
take off in the US like in China and fear it could be a mistake
diluting the brand.
A pocket pizza type serving might suffice at Pizza Hut, but these
stores do not have drive-thrus, where morning fast-food places receive
nearly 50% of their business. With 35,000 locations World-Wide this is
a major undertaking for the company, can they pull it off? Analysts
say they have to do something, and I tend to agree that this is
something, but am also a little skeptical, we shall see? Something to
contemplate in 2008.