News

Bakery-café category underrepresented in Canada

June 7, 2013

Technomic has developed a Canadian Bakery & Coffee Cafe Consumer Trend Report, which shows that bakery-cafes in the country experience relatively low overall traffic compared to coffee-cafes.

Technomic's latest look at Canada's cafe segment — encompassing fast casual bakery cafes and quick-service coffee cafes — shows that just 29 percent of customers have visited a bakery café, while 62 percent visit coffee cafes at least weekly.

"Coffee cafes have carved out a dominant niche in the industry," says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic. "However, the fast casual bakery-cafe category has yet to fully evolve as a restaurant segment. Addressing consumer preferences for convenience, menu variety, healthy offerings and top-quality food ingredients are all central to driving traffic at this type of cafe concept."

Other findings from the report include:

• Among the 29 percent of consumers who never visit bakery cafes, most report that there are no convenient locations near them, and open-ended data indicates that some consumers are simply not familiar with bakery cafes.
• A third of consumers (34 percent) have been visiting coffee cafes more often over the past year and cite convenience and speed of service as key factors in encouraging their increased patronage of these concepts.
• Breakfast sandwiches are a top menu trend in the cafe segment: they've increased by 44 percent on Canadian coffee cafe menus over the past year. Half of consumers surveyed would occasionally order these sandwiches for breakfast at bakery (48 percent) and coffee (51 percent) cafes, if offered.

Read more about restaurant trends.