Nowadays breakfast means different things to different people. Eggs and bacon at the weekend, toast and cereal in the week. Yogurt and fruit if you're watching your weight, and a croissant and coffee if you're in a hurry. And forecourt operators have to cater for all these menus. They need breakfast-to-go for commuters and workmen as well as at-home breakfast items for families. That means breakfast spans the food-to-go area, the grocery shelves as well as the chillers.

It might be dubbed the most important meal of the day, but busy UK consumers are increasingly prone to leaving home without eating breakfast. Research by Datamonitor shows that nearly one third of UK consumers are missing breakfast at home - on average that's 114 per person per year. And the report predicts that by 2010 a greater number of working consumers are likely to either skip breakfast altogether or eat out-of-home.

Ask 20 different people what they have for breakfast and chances are you'll get 20 different answers. And that's because a lot of us don't get time for a sit-down breakfast in the mornings and instead have to opt for breakfast on the run. So that breakfast could be a banana, a cereal bar, or even a sandwich. Obviously all this is good news for forecourt stores as consumers grab something convenient on their way into work.