The breakfast experts at the American Egg Board are cracking open a new chapter of Incredible Breakfast Trends (IBT) in 2018. “Going forward Incredible Breakfast Trends won’t just focus on national breakfast trends,” says Phaedra Ruffalo, AEB’s senior director, market development. “It will go beyond them to the chefs who are setting those trends. Several times a year, we’ll be interviewing nationally-acclaimed chefs to learn how they bring a breakfast trend to life on their menu. From competing on Iron Chef and Top Chef to earning Michelin stars to writing their own cookbooks to James Beard Award recipients—these chefs are well, incredible breakfast trendsetters.” Using video, slide shows, recipes and more, IBT brings breakfast trends alive for readers.
Chicago-based chef, writer and undisputed, “Breakfast Queen,” Ina Pinkney is the first of IBT’s trend-setting chefs. She dishes on the bowl trend and its limitless opportunities, specifically breakfast bowls and what gives them their menu appeal. In a guest vlog Chef Ina draws on her years of experience focusing on the breakfast daypart, sharing her views about the breakfast bowl phenomenon: “Breakfast bowls allow you to choose to eat a meal in layers or mixed all together. Fill it with flavor and texture and you’ve got an exciting array of concepts that will bring consumers back time and again.”
Chef Ina, who authors a regular breakfast column in the Chicago Tribune, developed a signature breakfast bowl recipe, Ina’s French Soul Bowl. It features hard-boiled eggs in a mustard-based gribiche sauce that coats Southern-inspired ingredients, selected for their blend of taste and texture.
Examples of half a dozen other creative bowls on breakfast menus around the country are highlighted in a slideshow. More chef-created bowl recipes are served up as menu inspiration. These range from a Poblano-Potato Mash with Fried Egg to a Sweet Japanese Egg & Tuna Poke Bowl.
“Thrill Seekers”
As America’s largest demographic group, millennials continue to exert market influence. Luckily for restaurateurs they’re an adventuresome bunch. Datassential dubbed millennials—dining “thrill seekers,” who like intense flavor and texture, and NPD Group researchers called them “restaurant explorers.” In addition, they like customization. The fresh ingredients and limitless possibilities bowls offer provide the perfect mix for millennial diners.
Innova data shows breakfast bowls trending upwards with new product claims for “bowl(s)” increasing steadily from 2012 to 2017.1 Bowls offer a ready environ for “salad-style” meals, created with fresh ingredients that readily mix and match with each other. This enhances the bowls’ health appeal to a consumer audience hungry for such fare. It also offers the perfect blank canvas for experimentation. A bevy of potential combinations can appeal to self-proclaimed foodies within any demographic, but particularly millennials.
“Breakfast bowls offer the opportunity to create fusion presentations, mixing cuisines and ethnic flavors perfectly suited for the adventuresome diner, like millennials,” says Ruffalo. “And nothing says ‘breakfast’ like an egg. Few proteins offer their versatility and ability to blend with a bounty of other fresh ingredients.”
Chef Ina’s video, complete recipes for chef-inspired breakfast bowls, including her French Soul Bowl, trend information, culinary tips and much more are at www.aeb.org/foodservice/breakfast-trends.
