Beyond breakfast

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Working with trends to maximise productivity

Beyond breakfast

Here at Eurest, we pride ourselves on creating contemporary foodservice solutions for the workplace — from the tearoom to the boardroom and everything in between. And it all starts with breakfast.

We bring exceptional culinary creativity and flair, style and hospitality to employee restaurants, cafés and executive dining rooms around the UK.

We know that adding real value comes from truly understanding each client’s business and consumer needs. The working day doesn’t have to be 9-5, so we offer our customers a flexible approach to breakfast, making sure there are always options available that are convenient to them.

Time is precious, and we know people don’t always find the time to eat breakfast, which is why we have a range of options available — whether it’s a healthy grab-and-go muesli pot or our smoked salmon, poached egg and avocado breakfast pots to sit and enjoy, there’s something to suit all lifestyles.

Evidence shows that regularly eating breakfast is an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and we aim to help people achieve this. It’s our role to give our customers the means to set themselves up for the day ahead, and a good way to do this is by getting the right amount of nutrients at breakfast.

Consumer eating habits are changing. People are eating breakfast away from home more, and they’re changing the foods they eat to look for healthier choices. We understand this, and are constantly developing new recipes that meet the nutritional and lifestyle needs of our consumers.

Our breakfast solutions are quick, easy, flexible and nutritious — as well as delicious — so we can get more people eating breakfast. Join us in realising the great benefits breakfast can bring.

Let’s talk breakfast

Despite the fact that eating early in the day is an important part of maintaining a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle, up to a third of us skip breakfast entirely (British Dietetic Association, 2016).

So what effect does this have on our health and wellbeing? And how do we encourage more people to eat breakfast regularly?

In this white paper, we’ll look at:

• current breakfast trends

• the importance of eating a healthy breakfast every day, particularly in terms of productivity

• why people skip breakfast

• how organisations can encourage people to get breakfasting.

Introduction

The concept of breakfast as we know it today was created by a change in working habits. Before the 16th Century, many people’s ‘work’ centred on subsistence, working on tasks that needed doing with no formal timings. These labouring people didn’t have to start their day at dawn, so they didn’t bother with breakfast — they stuck with a mid-morning meal at around 10:30am.

During the 16th Century, however, this labouring segment of society began to work for other people — gaining employment for a set number of hours each day. This would often see them working from 5am until 7 or 8pm, with a break of an hour and a half for a meal later in the day(Mason, 2015). This change created a nine-hour gap between the first meal of the day and dinner — too long for most to productively go without food.

So, due to the new working habits, people pushed the mid-morning meal back to around midday, and breakfast emerged as a common way to prepare workers for a morning of hard toil (Mason, 2015).

The history of breakfast

Breakfast today

Over nine million people now eat out for breakfast each day — and one in three eat breakfast away from home at least once a week (Garrahan, 2015). This means that, on average, UK adults now eat out for breakfast as often as they do for dinner each month (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

This trend towards eating out for breakfast is growing rapidly: the average number of visits made to restaurants for the first meal of the day leapt by a third between 2014 and 2015, and it continues to rise (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

And eating breakfast out of the home is set to become even more popular as young people get older and gain greater spending power. Currently, adults in the 18-24 age group eat out for breakfast the most each month — visiting restaurants almost twice as often as the total average for everyone in the UK (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

one in three eat breakfast away from home at least once a week

We’re eating breakfast away from home more often

Breakfast has become another chance to socialise, in much the same way as lunch or dinner. More than a quarter of us eat breakfast out for leisure or as part of a social occasion (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

One in ten make the trip to a restaurant for breakfast as a form of relaxation and 13 per cent do it to treat themselves (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

Breakfasting out has become an aspirational event for many of us, replacing the functional meal we might have had at home.

Restaurants have reacted quickly to this trend. Many of the places you’d previously have only thought to go for dinner are now offering a breakfast menu. And this has led to British people spending £76 million every day on eating out for breakfast (Garrahan, 2015).

However, eating breakfast out of the home doesn’t guarantee improved health and wellbeing. When eating breakfast out, a quarter of people head for the nearest fast-food restaurant — with McDonald’s attracting 17.3 per cent of them (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

Breakfast today

Socialising and relaxing over breakfast is big business

A fast-food breakfast is appealing

Although breads and cereals still make up the bulk of breakfast food — forming up to 89 per cent of all breakfasts in the UK — people are looking elsewhere for variety (AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds, 2016).

Health is higher up the agenda

It’s noticeable that people now eat more foods that they perceive as being healthy for them (AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds, 2016). This is partly down to growing awareness of how unhealthy some packaged cereals are — with many containing more than eight teaspoons of sugar per 100g (Consensus Action on Salt & Health, 2015).

The content of breakfast is changing

some packaged cereals contain more than eight teaspoons of sugar per 100g

There is also interest in drinking rather than eating nutrients at breakfast. Sales of ‘breakfast drinks’ — from fruit smoothies to cereal-based protein drinks — have risen by 4.9 per cent in the UK (North, 2015). Fruit juices, in particular, have become a popular choice for diners eating breakfast out. They’ve seen an 8.8 per cent increase in consumption, with almost a fifth of people ordering one to go with their meals (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

The trend towards eating breakfast out sees us eating more cooked foods, with eggs and bacon the most popular choices by quite some distance. Almost 40 per cent of breakfasts eaten at a casual restaurant during the first quarter of 2015 included eggs, while bacon featured in more than a third (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015). The traditional cooked breakfast also remains a favourite, with a quarter of people choosing this when eating at a restaurant (M&C Allegra Foodservice, 2015).

Trends from main-stream cuisine are crossing over into the breakfast market. Some are short-lived and others have the potential to become a more permanent addition to our diets. Current hot trends include artisan doughnuts, appearing at street-food markets or on restaurant menus, and the ‘burgerisation’ of cooked breakfast ingredients — serving them up in a bun.

And some foodservice operators now offer breakfast pots — mixing together breakfast elements to boost convenience, such as combining eggs and baked beans.

The content of breakfast is changing

Juices are growing in popularity

Cooked foods are on the up

General food trends have a impact on breakfast

The importance of breakfast

Breakfast is an important meal that has a huge impact on our health and wellbeing — as well as on our productivity throughout the day. People who eat a regular breakfast:

• find it easier to maintain a healthy weight (British Dietetic Association, 2016.)

• reduce their risk of developing a cardiovascular disease (British Dietetic Association, 2016.)

• have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those who regularly skip it (Clayton, Barutcu, Machin, Stensel,& James, 2015).

Eating a meal first thing every day can have a dramatic effect on our long-term health and wellbeing. For starters, breakfast kick-starts our metabolism, providing all the nutrients our bodies need to keep us going — whatever we do (British Dietetic Association, 2016.).

Eating a good breakfast makes us more productive. Even if we eat a larger lunch to compensate for skipping breakfast, our productivity throughout the day is reduced (Clayton, Barutcu, Machin, Stensel, & James, 2015). We might not feel like eating until lunchtime, but our bodies say it’s wise to eat breakfast.

There’s a common assumption that missing the first meal of the day is a good way to lose weight — and that skipping breakfast causes you to overeat for lunch and dinner. But there’s no hard and fast rule for either.

Overweight people skipping breakfast every day for four weeks are likely to lose weight (Geliebter, Astbury, Aviram-Friedman, Yahav, & Hashim, 2014), but there’s also research to suggest that eating breakfast can have a positive effect on weight loss by leading us to take part in more physical activity (University of Bath, 2016).

However, skipping breakfast regularly does also have other negative effects. It’s not just about weight loss — going without breakfast increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (Bi, et al., 2015).

Early eating boosts productivity

Breakfast and weight loss

So it’s clear that the choice to eat breakfast in a morning (or not) can have massive implications for both our short and long-term health. But why? What is it that causes our bodies such problems if we don’t eat early in the morning?

Much of it is down to the way our bodies react in particular ways at certain times during the day. Circadian rhythms dictate how our bodies process meals, depending on when we eat them (Morris, et al., 2015). These are physical and mental changes (closely related to our biological clocks) that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding to light and dark (National Institute of General Medical Sciences, 2012).

And our circadian rhythms mean that our glucose tolerance is higher in the morning than in the evening (Morris, et al., 2015). So just after we wake up is the best time for us to eat, because our bodies process the nutrients more efficiently, giving us more energy for the day ahead.

It’s essentially like stopping to fill up your car with petrol in the morning. You can drive further and faster on a fuller tank than if you constantly have to pull over to top up in small amounts.

It’s important to develop a habit of eating a healthy breakfast each day while young. Poor breakfast habits in adolescence increase the likelihood of developing metabolic syndrome (a mixture of diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity) in adulthood (Wennberg, Gustafsson, Wennberg, & Hammarstrom, 2015).

The importance of breakfast

Disrupting our natural rhythm

Early habits count

Why do people skip breakfast?

Britain is a nation of breakfast skippers. Nearly half of all British people miss breakfast at least once a week (North, 2015). And only a quarter manage to eat breakfast every day (Atchley, 2015).

So what’s stopping people eating breakfast regularly?

Not enough time in the day

Almost 40 per cent of people skip breakfast due to a lack of time (Atchley, 2015). And when we’re working to a tight schedule in the morning — perhaps factoring in the time for a commute — breakfast is often the easiest thing to sacrifice.

Working habits are changing It’s no wonder people struggle to prioritise a healthy breakfast when time is short — especially for adults of working age. Working hours are longer than they were a decade ago, with a 15 per cent rise in the number of people working more than 48 hours a week (TUC, 2015), which is the UK Government’s own maximum (UK Government, 2015).

It’s a particular problem amongst young adults, with a tenth of people in the 18-24 age group working more than 20 hours of overtime each week (Dann, 2015). This has an impact on work-life balance, cutting into downtime and making unhealthy eating — such as missing breakfast — more likely.

Another time pressure is the fact that many of us now have to live further from our place of work. Average UK house prices are set to rise by six per cent this year (Osborne, 2015), and by 50 per cent over the next ten years (BBC, 2015).

This means we’re less likely to be able to afford housing within any sort of proximity to our workplaces (Rodionova, 2015) — especially if we live and work in the UK’s cities. This results in longer journeys, beginning earlier and earlier, making breakfast less of a priority.

Working flexibly is an attractive prospect to many of us, particularly in the face of increasing travelling time. Remote working has increased by 37 per cent in the UK — and 60 per cent of employers believe it makes people more productive (FM World, 2016). In fact, a third of workers would prefer to work flexible hours than have a three per cent pay rise (Frith, 2016).

Unfortunately, flexible working can have a negative effect on our health and wellbeing. The ‘always available’ nature of working away from the office pushes out regular meal breaks.

Also, the unstructured nature of flexible working fosters a snacking or ‘grazing’ instinct that keeps dangerous stress hormones at persistently high levels (Jowit, 2016).

Almost 40 per cent of people skip breakfast due to a lack of time

Why do people skip breakfast?

Flexible working changes our meal times

Longer commutes push out breakfast

How to get more people eating breakfast

We like breakfast; we just don’t have time for it as much as we used to.However, given the strong link between breakfast and productivity, it’s in the interests of UK organisations to encourage people to make time for breakfast.

Longer working hours (at varying times) an increased travelling distances mean that — similar to the labourers of the Middle Ages — we’re shifting to eating our first meal of the day mid-morning. Organisations have to adapt to these changes to get the best from people.

1. Encourage early starts

By heading out for work that little bit earlier in the morning, people can avoid the stress of sitting in traffic and set themselves up for the day by taking the time to enjoy breakfast.

2. Hold breakfast meetings

Getting teams together over a shared breakfast catches people at their most productive, and gives them the fuel they need for the day ahead.

3. Make meals easy and convenient

Organisations need to provide access to quick and easy ways for people to get the sustenance essential for productivity. And with more people taking advantage of flexible working practices, they need to have breakfast available well beyond 9am.

4. Offer a range of healthy choices

Organisations need to ensure easy access to nutritious food options. And offering a variety of choices will encourage people to eat breakfast throughout the week.

5. Show people they have value

When organisations make the effort to provide a selection of food and drinks throughout the day (including breakfast), their employees feel more valued and work more productively.

As we’ve mentioned, one way organisations can harness the productive power of breakfast is to start scheduling their meetings for first thing in the morning.

Nearly two-thirds of workers find it easier to concentrate on meetings held earlier in the day, rather than later (meetpie.com, 2014). For many, between 10:00am and 10:30am is the most productive period of the day (Taylor-Smith, 2014), making it the ideal time to book meetings.

Sharing a breakfast during your morning meeting can also boost productivity in people. Almost three-quarters of workers found themselves to be more alert and enthusiastic at breakfast meetings, while 85 per cent felt more productive throughout their day after eating together in the morning (meetpie.com, 2014).

So by providing a wide range of nutritious food options for breakfast meetings, organisations can make their get-togethers as productive as possible while setting their people up to work more efficiently throughout the day ahead.

How to get more people eating breakfast

Meet for breakfast

Breakfast is important to our health and wellbeing. It provides the energy to keep us going each day and reduces our chances ofdeveloping long-term health problems. Eating an early-morning meal regularly also improves our productivity throughout our day — more so than if we skipped it and filled up at lunch.

So it’s good that the number of people eating breakfast is rising. And we seem to be seeing a culture shift in the way we eat breakfast, with many of us eating out regularly and looking for new (often healthier) foods to enjoy. This change is a positive, in that it makes consuming an early-morning meal more appealing to all.

It’s in the interests of organisations to make sure we have access to the nutrition we need to be productive.

The healthier we are, the happier we are — and the more energy we’ll put into everything we do.

Breakfast needs to be a priority for organisations

AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds. (2016, 01 14). Cereals and bread still breakfast mainstays. Retrieved from AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds: http://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/markets/market-news/2016/january/14/prospects-cereals-and-bread-still-breakfast-mainstays.aspx

AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds. (2016, 01 14). UK breakfast consumption up 1%. Retrieved from AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds: http://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/press/2016/january/14/cereals-and-bread-still-breakfast-mainstays.aspx

Atchley, C. (2015, 09 02). Tracking breakfast ingredient trends. Retrieved from Food Business News: http://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/news_home/Consumer_Trends/2015/02/ Tracking_breakfast_ingredient.aspx?ID={15CA7404-3F94-48D5-9DB2-CE6F3740E940}&cck=1

BBC. (2015, 12 17). House prices to rise 50% in 10 years, say estate agents. Retrieved from BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35102130

Bi, H., Gan, Y., Yang, C., Chen, Y., Tong, X., & Lu, Z. (2015). Breakfast skipping and the risk of type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis of observational studies. Public Health Nutrition, 3013-3019.

British Dietetic Association. (2016). Food Fact Sheet - Breakfast. Retrieved from British Dietetic Association: https://www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/breakfast.pdf

Brown, A., Bohan Brown, M., & Allison, D. (2013). Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1298-308.

Clayton, D., Barutcu, A., Machin, C., Stensel, D., & James, L. (2015). Effect of Breakfast Omission on Energy Intake and Evening Exercise Performance. Indianapolis: The Official Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Consensus Action on Salt & Health. (2015, 01 28). Cereals still stuffed with sugar. Retrieved from Consensus Action on Salt & Health: http://www.actiononsalt.org.uk/actiononsugar/Press%20Release%20/146899.html?gclid=CIaL_ZeOi8sCFcO4Gwod0ngElw

Dann, K. (2015, 10 19). Are young people working too hard? Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/careers/2015/oct/19/are-young-people-working-too-hard

FM World. (2016, February). Flexible trend on the rise in the UK. Retrieved from FM World: http://www.fm-world.co.uk/news/fm-industry-news/flexible-working-trend-on-the-rise-in-uk/

Frith. (2016, February). A third of employees would prefer flexible working over a pay rise. Retrieved from HR: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article-details/34-of-employees-would- prefer-a-more-flexible-approach-to-working-hours-than-a-pay-rise

Garrahan, L. (2015, 07 28). Brits spend £76m a day dining out for breakfast. Retrieved from Big Hospitality: http://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Trends-Reports/Brits-spend-76m-a-day-dining-out-for-breakfast

Geliebter, A., Astbury, N., Aviram-Friedman, R., Yahav, E., & Hashim, S. (2014). Skipping breakfast leads to weight loss but also elevated cholesterol compared with consuming daily breakfasts of oat porridge or frosted cornflakes in overweight individuals: a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Nutritional Science, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4473164/.

Jowit, J. (2016, January). Work-life balance. Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jan/02/work-life-balance-flexible-working-can-make-you-ill-experts-say

M&C Allegra Foodservice. (2015). The UK Eating Out Market. London: M&C Allegra Foodservice.

Mason, E. (2015, 08 14). How the Tudors invented breakfast. Retrieved from Historyextra: http://www.historyextra.com/feature/tudors/how-tudors-invented-breakfast

meetpie.com. (2014, 08 10). Survey finds breakfast meetings boost productivity. Retrieved from meetpie.com: http://www.meetpie.com/Modules/NewsModule/NewsDetails.aspx?newsid=19651

Mintel. (2015, 09 23). Breakfast at home and away: What’s impacting the breakfast category? Retrieved from Mintel: http://www.mintel.com/blog/foodservice-market-news/breakfast-at-home-and-away-whats-impacting-the-breakfast-category

Morris, C., Yang, J., Garcia, J., Myers, S., Bozzi, I., Wang, W., . . . Scheera, F. (2015). Endogenous circadian system and circadian misalignment impact glucose tolerance via separate mechanisms in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2225-2234.

References

National Institute of General Medical Sciences. (2012, November). Circadian Rhythms Fact Sheet. Retrieved from National Institute of General Medical Sciences: https://www.nigms.nih.gov/ Education/Pages/Factsheet_CircadianRhythms.aspx

NHS choices. (2015, February). Vitamins and minerals - B vitamins and folic acid. Retrieved from NHS choices: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-minerals/Pages/Vitamin-B.aspx

NHS. (2015, February). good breakfast guide. Retrieved from Change 4 Life: http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/supporter-resources/downloads/ B4L_Good_Breakfast_Guide_acc.pdf

North, A. (2015, 08 27). Can breakfast drinks really hit £100m in the next five years? Retrieved from The Grocer: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/reports/digital-features/breakfast-report-2015/ can-breakfast-drinks-really-hit-100m-in-the-next-five-years/523385.article

North, A. (2015, 08 27). Half of Brits skip breakfast... but the fry up is flying! Retrieved from The Grocer: http://www.thegrocer.co.uk/reports/digital-features/breakfast-report-2015/half-of- brits-skip-breakfast-but-the-fry-up-is-flying/523767.article

Osborne, H. (2015, 12 22). UK house prices to rise 6% on average in 2016, surveyors forecast . Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/22/uk-house- prices-6-percent-2016-rics-forecast

Rodionova, Z. (2015, 10 06). Even Airbnb and Google senior workers can’t afford to live near the office. Retrieved from The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/even-air-bnb-and-google-senior-workers-can-t-afford-to-live-near-the-office-a6681906.html

Statista. (2016). Share of British adults who “rarely have time to eat a proper breakfast” in Great Britain from 2005 to 2015* . Retrieved from Statista: http://www.statista.com/statistics/301121/eating-breakfast-behaviour-trend-uk-great-britain/

Taylor-Smith, C. (2014, 07 25). Bring on the breakfast meeting. Retrieved from Executive Secretary Magazine: http://executivesecretary.com/bring-on-the-breakfast-meeting/

TUC. (2015, 09 09). 15 per cent increase in people working more than 48 hours a week risks a return to ‘Burnout Britain’, warns TUC. Retrieved from TUC: https://www.tuc.org.uk/ international-issues/europe/workplace-issues/work-life-balance/15-cent-increase-people- working-more

UK Government. (2015, September). Maximum weekly working hours. Retrieved from Gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/overview

University of Bath. (2016, 02 13). Eating breakfast could help obese people get more active. Retrieved from University of Bath: http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2016/02/13/science- eating-breakfast/

Wennberg, M., Gustafsson, P., Wennberg, P., & Hammarstrom, A. (2015). Poor breakfast habits in adolescence predict the metabolic syndrome in adulthood. Public Health Nutrition, 122-129.

References

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