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A new fast food war underway and it's not a burger battle this time, and it's not a matter of fried or flame broil. Rebecca Jarvis, Following The Money tonight in a brouhaha between McDonald's and Starbucks.
"This is your wake-up call. "
Just months after McDonald's gives its customers something premium to sip on. Starbucks gets the wake-up call. And now the coffee giant is leaving a clear message of its own, swinging at the fast food giant on its home turf in Chicago, and clamoring for a cut of the lucrative breakfast market.
"We're gonna be launching, er, our new warming breakfast sandwiches."
Chicago will be the fifth city to taste the five new warm breakfast sandwiches. Each costs ($)2.95, a price that's 32% more than the egg and muffin at McDonald's. But price isn't a deterrent for hungry consumers.
"From the diet perspective, you know, people are running around. So I think, yeah, people will definitely pay extra buck for it."
The sandwiches which are already available in Portland, Oregon, Washing D.C., San Francisco, and Starbucks its own hometown Seattle will be available in 126 Chicago-land Starbucks locations by February. The sandwiches come in a variety of choices with at least one vegetarian version, and while more than 50% of sales in Starbucks occur before 11 a.m. The company hopes that its heavy users who average at least 18 store visits per month may want breakfast there, too.
"What Starbucks is doing is they are offering their breakfast sandwiches all day long, whereas McDonalds's breakfast ends at usually 10:30 in the morning, so...you know, people will be able to get the Starbucks' sandwiches all day long."
Starbucks already offers a number of deli sandwiches throughout the day with grab-and-go lunch offerings available at 3,200 Starbucks in the U.S. So how do the experts think the croissant will crumble?
"Away-from-home breakfast is about a 70-billion-dollar market growing at 5 or 6%. And we believe Starbucks can get a pretty decent share of that."
And if that's the case, they are lovin' it.
On The Money, Rebecca Jarvis, CNBC.
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