The Evolution of Lunch: From the Humble Brown Bag to the Snackle Box

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will always be the framework for our major consumption occasions. But even before the pandemic, U.S. consumers were shifting their habits, patterns, and needs in ways that disrupted these dayparts. Boomers were exiting the workforce, more people were working remotely, and the gig economy was starting to take off. Then the pandemic accelerated the trajectory of these trends by almost five years.

These changes affected the lunch daypart most, creating challenges for foodservice operators and CPG manufacturers alike. For the year ending March 2024, the share of lunches sourced away from home was three points lower than the pre-pandemic share of occasions, shown by our CREST ^® and National Eating Trends® U.S. data. And fully half the volume of foodservice traffic that’s been lost since 2019 is explained by declines at lunch.

As foodservice lunches slowed, consumers started moving their dollars to earlier dayparts, allocating a larger share of spend to breakfast and mid-morning snacks. Retail on-the-go lunches, however, have rebounded, as have non-commercial lunch channels such as workplace cafeterias, recreation, and vending. Contributing to the disruption, employers have begun offering reduced-cost lunches and free meals to lure workers back to the office.

As we conducted our 39th annual Eating Patterns in America research, it became clear that the lunch disruption we’ve seen is here to stay. As consumers continue to adjust to hybrid, at-home, and in-office work, lunch will be a pain point for them. They want lunch solutions that are affordable, convenient, and deliver a fresh experience from foodservice operators and CPG retailers.

Winning lunch with the three Ps: portion size, portability, and price

Consumers’ needs change throughout the day and across the week. For example, CREST tells us foodservice lunch visits were stronger at the end of the week in 2024 compared to 2023. We’ve also seen increases in mid-morning and evening snacking occasions at foodservice. This suggests the future of lunch will be more fluid and flexible, whether it’s packaged goods purchased at a retail or items purchased off a restaurant menu.

The bright spots in lunch right now are operators, retailers, and CPGs that optimize the three Ps: pricing, portion size, and portability.

• Portion size. Convenience has become a major theme at lunch. Consumers often compose lunches with an assortment of snack items sourced from home/retail and foodservice. Snackification at lunch – adding or replacing lunch items with snacks –  is a trend that’s been growing during the last 10 years, shown by our SnackTrack^® information.
  
  For the work-from-home set, lunch may be a series of snacks from the refrigerator or pantry, while an office worker might grab a cheese and cracker kit from a coffee shop during a mid-morning caffeine run. In the foodservice realm, one indication we’ve seen that people are re-thinking portion size is an uptick in adults ordering from kid menus.
  
  Beverages are another foodservice growth area. People are turning to beverages to address varied needs, revealed by our Eating Patterns in America research. Beverages provide more than hydration. They’re vehicles for energy ingredients, protein, functional benefits, and indulgence, whether it’s specialty coffees, “dirty” sodas, or boba drinks. Beverages can supplement or replace lunch when sized appropriately, and they’re a big reason that portable beverageware is flying off store shelves. Consumers increasingly have different needs throughout the day, and they’re finding creative ways to meet them.

• Portability. As many U.S. workers return to offices, the percentage of adults brown-bagging lunch has rebounded by 34% for the year ending in March 2024 the same period in 2021. Those lunches are less likely to be the sad desk lunches of yesteryear. The snackle box trend, inspired by TikTok and encouraged by Pinterest, has entered the lunch landscape, allowing consumers to take their charcuterie on the go. Like bento box lunches before them, snackle boxes (literally tackle boxes filled with snacks) are a way to keep lunch fresh, flexible, fun, and portable. Retailers can help shoppers stock their snackle boxes through creative merchandising: Think about displays that feature items needed for snack kits or pairing these items on e-commerce platforms.

• Pricing. Of course, even the most portable, convenient, and delicious lunch items in the world won’t succeed if they don’t provide value. Restaurant operators and CPG retailers need to give consumers options at price points that give them flexibility to construct their eating occasions to suit their needs, which is one reason the value wars are still raging.

Traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner aren’t going anywhere. And daypart disruption is here to stay. As manufacturers, retailers, and foodservice operators look for incremental growth in a marketplace that’s structurally very flat and competitive, these newer snacking occasions are a great place to lean into.