7-ELEVEN HITS HIGH NUMBERS ON HOT BREAKFAST SANDWICHES

ROSEANNE HARPER

DALLAS -- Southland Corp. here reports better-than-expected sales after introducing fresh hot breakfast sandwiches at its 7-Eleven stores.

The expansion of the morning menu has sent sales at 7-Eleven units soaring 126% over the same period a year earlier, and that's 10% higher than the company projected, said Nate Richer, Southland's category manager for fresh breakfast.

After testing 19 different fresh, hot sandwiches in Florida units last year, the company has begun to roll out a variety of the items that includes different combinations of ingredients on English muffins, biscuits and croissants. Next up will be breakfast burritos, scheduled for a send-off in March. "We found that customers want hot, ready-to-go, very portable items that have a high flavor profile," Richer said. "We've always sold a lot of coffee in the morning and that traffic gives us a big breakfast opportunity," he added.

At test stores, fully half of 7-Eleven customers wanted to buy their breakfast sandwiches already hot and ready-to-go. A quarter of them heated their sandwiches themselves in in-store microwave ovens, and another 25% took them away chilled, Richer said.

Richer gives full credit for the sales success to the new menu items, which join a lineup of doughnuts, muffins and other baked goods delivered fresh each morning to 2,800 of the company's 5,600 units. The items are made at eight company-operated commissaries strategically scattered across the United States.