Mumbai: Hardcastle Restaurants Private Limited (HRPL), a Master Franchisee for West & South India operations of McDonald’s® Restaurants and a subsidiary of the BSE listed Westlife Development Limited (BSE: 505533), announced that the third year of 
McDonald’s initiated the breakfast movement by launching ‘National Breakfast Day’ (NBD) in 2013 to emphasize the importance of breakfast and to give customers an easier start to the day with wholesome, convenient breakfast solutions. This program is part of McDonald’s commitment not only to grow the breakfast category but also encourage Indians to eat breakfast. Breakfast is an important start to the day everywhere in the world, and McDonald’s wants more people to enjoy the value of breakfast with a free McMuffin at the nearest McDonald’s on a first-come-first served basis till stock lasts.
This year, NBD will see participation from over 5,000 McDonald’s restaurants across India, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Given the large number of participating restaurants – potentially, this will mean a free breakfast for millions of McDonald’s customers across countries.
Despite breakfast being considered as the most important meal of the day, most people tend to skip this meal. A survey conducted by Research Centre, College of Home Science, Nirmala Niketan with a sample size of 3,600 in the age group of 8 to 40, covering SEC A and B across metros – Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata shows only 3% regard breakfast as an essential meal; 72% do not have adequate breakfast daily; and one in four skips it. Breakfast skipping is common in all 4 metros. Amongst those who do, ‘breakfast’ is skipped the most, more so across Mumbai (34%) and Chennai (37%).
McDonald’s recognized this trend early on and in 2010 became the 1st QSR to launch breakfast in India. We offer customers a dedicated breakfast menu which includes a wide and appetizing range of grilled wholesome breakfast products perfect for those rushed for time and offers great value as it is priced from Rs.25/- onwards.
Commenting on the National Breakfast Day initiative, Mr. Ranjith Paliath, Vice President, Business Operations, Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd (McDonald’s India – West & South) said, “National Breakfast Day is symbolic of our commitment to expand our breakfast business in India. Breakfast is an important lever of McDonald’s growth strategy and ‘National Breakfast Day’ is a movement to rally people to make breakfast an integral part of their healthy morning. We believe that there is a growing market for out-of-home breakfast which is a reflection of an evolving lifestyle, characterized by nuclear families, rising young and working population coupled with growing disposable income and commute times. We aim to grow our breakfast customer base and are continually committed to make our breakfast offerings more relevant to customers’ lifestyles.”
“Given our success with National Breakfast Day in the last two years, we endeavor to execute a great breakfast experience and to delight our customers with the goodness of McDonald’s breakfast.” Mr. Paliath added.
National Breakfast Day on 9th March gets bigger this time, with over 5,000 employees across 121 restaurants in West and South India are set to give away thousands of free veg and non-veg McMuffins to customers this year during the breakfast hours between 7:00am to 11:00am. All these restaurants will also offer an all-day breakfast menu. In the last two years, McDonald’s in west and south region alone has distributed over one lakh free McMuffins to the patrons of Golden Arches on the occasion of National Breakfast Day.
Source : Lokesh Shastri