National Football League fans gather in downtown Tampa ahead of Super Bowl LV during the COVID-19 pandemic on January 30, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.
Octavio Jones | Getty Images
Super Bowl Sunday is a big day for football – and restaurants.
But the chains that are likely to benefit most from feeding hungry fans have already seen their sales rise during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl Sunday as the biggest dining holiday. The big game attracted more than 100 million viewers last year. Non-football fans agree on the NFL Championship for interesting ads, an entertaining rest time show and the distribution of food during viewing parties.
For Yum Brands’ Pizza Hut, Super Bowl Sunday is the busiest day of the year. Domino’s Pizza usually delivers about 2 million pies that day, 30% higher than a regular Sunday. Fat Brands, which owns Hurricane Grill & Wings, Buffalo’s Cafe and Buffalo’s Express, sells half a million chicken wings on Super Bowl Sundays. For Wingstop, it counts among the five best sales days annually.
Throughout the pandemic, pizza and chicken wings were the most important aspect of the Americans’ quarantine diet. Both are known for traveling well, and the categories’ biggest players have been working for years to make their food more convenient.
In the fourth quarter, Pizza Hut reported growth in the U.S. store in the same store by 8%. Dominoes saw an increase in U.S. sales in the same store in the second and third quarters. And Wingstop, which had already surpassed the rest of the growth in the industry before the crisis, reported that sales in the same store rose 25% in the third quarter.
“If anything we’ve experienced over the past twelve months is an indication of the industry’s sales, we expect it to continue on Sunday,” said Brian Gies, global head of marketing at Church’s Chicken.
Church’s Chicken, which serves chicken tenders and deboned wings, introduced its Texas Tenders A Shrimp Meal in time for the Super Bowl to take advantage of the demand. The menu item was created to appeal to customers observing Lent, which only launches on February 17th.
Wingstop CEO Charlie Morrison said through a spokesman that the company still expects strong sales for the big game. However, compared to recent years, the chicken wing chain may receive more orders and a lower average check due to the reduced size. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended minimizing guest lists for viewing parties and celebrating outdoors or virtually.
“I think it’s going to be a really big weekend for us, and I think sales will not be in the rankings,” said Andy Wiederhorn, CEO of Fat Brands.
Supply chains under pressure
The pandemic has also led to challenges in the supply chain for restaurant businesses awaiting a busy Super Bowl. The prices for mozzarella cheese are higher, which will hurt the profits of pizza chains. For the first week of February, Wisconsin wholesale prices for a pound of mozzarella cheese rose to $ 2.70, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture report released Wednesday. In February 2019, the prices of mozzarella averaged about $ 2.15 per pound.
Chicken wing chains are under even more pressure. Wholesale prices are rising and restaurant operators are reporting shortages.
Wiederhorn said the company usually has a strong offering this time of year anyway.
“The only time it was not a fight was when McDonald’s, like seven or eight years ago, entered the chicken industry. It failed miserably,” Wiederhorn said.
As a result, Fat Brands began planning its Super Bowl wing orders a year in advance. But the supply problem is particularly bad this year due to outbreaks at meat processing plants and a greater demand for chicken wings, driven by increased delivery sales for the category. Fat Brands is bringing in some frozen chicken wings to complement the usual offering of fresh wings.