The out-of-home (OOH) food market is shifting, driven by changing work patterns, growing demand for convenience, and shifting consumer priorities. With meal occasions up 8.7% year-on-year, more people are eating out—but operators can’t rely on past assumptions. Evolving consumer behaviours demand a fresh approach. Breakfast is the fastest-growing occasion, surging 13.7%, while lunch remains the most valuable (£23bn) but its growth is slowing. Meanwhile, dinner—a £17.4bn market growing at 5.7%—offers untapped potential.
To remain competitive, businesses need to look beyond the headline figures and understand how shifts in behaviour, motivations, and outlet preferences are reshaping the market. The winners in 2025 will be those who adapt to these changes, challenge traditional assumptions, and take a fresh approach to where and how they compete.
Breakfast Trends: Who’s Winning and Who’s Losing?
Breakfast is no longer an afterthought. It’s the standout growth occasion of 2024, but while demand has increased, the market has been reshaped. Coffee shops—once a dominant force in the morning rush—have fallen out of the top three breakfast destinations as consumers increasingly turn to Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs) and multiple grocers.
Despite this shift, coffee remains a staple of the breakfast occasion, featuring in 42.6% of OOH breakfasts. However, coffee shops have declined 3.6% YOY in coffee occasions as consumers grab coffee elsewhere.
This represents a fundamental change in how and where consumers are purchasing their morning coffee. With speed and convenience winning out, brands must reconsider how they serve the morning rush—whether through app-driven orders, pre-packed grab-and-go options, or partnerships with QSRs and grocers.
Midlife consumers (35-54) remain the most engaged with breakfast out-of-home, but Gen Z is the fastest-growing group, increasing 23.7% year-on-year. As younger consumers develop new breakfast habits, brands that deliver affordability, portability, and digital convenience will be best placed to capture their spend. Across all age groups, while enjoyment remains the primary motivator, practicality is key to decision-making, influencing 44.6% of breakfast choices. Whether through grab-and-go solutions, high-quality coffee-to-go, or quick meal options, the brands that seamlessly fit into busy morning routines will benefit most from this growth.
Lunch: The £23 Billion Giant That’s Losing Momentum
Despite accounting for the largest share of meal occasions (28.9%) and holding the highest value in OOH (£23bn), lunch is losing momentum. At 3.2% year-on-year, it trails both the market average and the rapid acceleration of breakfast, suggesting that while consumers continue to spend on lunch, they are not necessarily spending more.
While there has been ongoing innovation, the most popular lunch choices—soups, salads, sandwiches, and fast-food bites—remain unchanged. Health-driven lunch choices have dropped by 14.6 million occasions year-on-year, as consumers increasingly prioritise enjoyment (90.4%) and practicality (40.3%). As multiple grocers and QSRs gain share, affordability and convenience are winning out. Meal deals, bundling, and premiumisation of simple offerings (e.g., high-protein sandwiches, gourmet salads) are proving effective in winning over price-conscious consumers without sacrificing quality.
At the same time, bakery, sandwich, and salad outlets have seen a decline in share, as consumers weigh up convenience and cost. In a category where habits are strong, but competition is intensifying, brands will need to offer a compelling mix of familiarity, ease, and value to remain relevant.
Dinner: The Underserved Growth Opportunity
Evening meals are a major yet underdeveloped OOH segment. Despite being the second-largest revenue driver after lunch, they represent a smaller share of meal occasions. But with a 5.7% growth rate year-on-year, it’s one of the biggest opportunities for brands in 2025.
The market remains dominated by QSRs, which account for 56.6% of evening meal occasions, followed by Full-Service Restaurants (16.4%) and pubs and bars (13.1%). Together, these three channels capture 93% of all evening meal spend, suggesting that while traditional meal occasions remain strong, there is space to diversify and extend dinner-time offerings.
Dinner is undergoing a quiet transformation. Once overlooked, it’s now becoming a key social occasion, with social-driven meal occasions surging 126.7% year-on-year. This shift signals major opportunities for brands that can tap into evolving evening rituals. Meanwhile, health is playing a greater role in decision-making at dinner than at lunch, with health-driven evening meal choices up 31.6%. While enjoyment and practicality remain the dominant drivers, this shift suggests an opportunity for brands that can balance indulgence with perceived health benefits, as well as those that create offerings suited to social dining occasions.
For brands operating in the evening meal space, the challenge is to reframe dinner as more than just a necessity. With the right approach, this could be an opportunity to introduce more premium, shareable, and experience-led meal propositions that align with changing consumer preferences.
How to Win in 2025
OOH is growing, but it’s changing. While overall occasions are increasing, consumer priorities are shifting, and brands that fail to adapt risk being left behind. Coffee shops can no longer rely on breakfast footfall alone, lunchtime operators must reconsider how they compete in a fragmented market, and dinner remains an untapped opportunity for those willing to innovate.
To win in 2025, food operators must ask themselves:
- Are we positioned in the right places? The shift away from coffee shops at breakfast and toward QSRs and grocers proves that traditional market positions aren’t guaranteed.
- Are we speaking to the right consumers? Gen Z’s engagement with OOH breakfast, the fragmentation of lunch, and the socialisation of dinner require new strategies for different audience segments.
- Are we aligning with what truly drives decisions? Practicality, enjoyment, and affordability now outweigh health across most meal occasions. Brands need to ensure their offering matches what consumers actually value.
The OOH market is more dynamic than ever—and those who track, adapt, and lead the change will be the ones who thrive.
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Drawing on real behaviour from GB’s only continuous OOH shopper and consumer panel, this key food-service insights series uncovers emerging trends to help you better understand your customers and identify new growth opportunities for your outlets.
Source: Kantar’s Worldpanel, OOH Usage Data: 52 w/e 3 Nov 24 vs 5 Nov 23.