North Vancouver-based A&W and fast-food giant McDonald’s are the latest giants locked in an all-day breakfast battle.
A&W launched its all-day breakfast at 40 of its restaurants last year and said it received a tremendous response, especially from millennials.
People have different schedules and traditions around when people eat have changed over the years, said Susan Senecal, president and chief operating officer of A&W Food Services of Canada.
A&W began serving all-day breakfasts on February 27, a week after McDonald’s Canada starting offering breakfast all day at 1,000 of its 1,450 restaurants.
A&W plans to have the all-day breakfasts at 95 per cent of its 879 restaurants by this spring.
Breakfast is a growing market in Canada, said Robert Carter, executive director of food service for market research firm NPD Group.
According to NPD data, 1.24 billion of the 6.5 billion visits to Canadian restaurants between December 2015 and November 2016 took place during breakfast. That’s an annual increase of 6.3 per cent.
Starbucks Canada has offered breakfast during all its regular store hours in Canada since 2008.
