Tim Hortons is looking to “stretch the brand” beyond breakfast and lunch and into the evening with a new pizza menu to be launched Wednesday. The restaurant chain, which celebrates its 60th anniversary May 17, will be offering Bacon Everything, Simply Cheese, Pepperoni and Chicken Parmesan flatbread pizzas across Canada. The flatbreads were piloted over the course of two years at select franchises, including in Calgary, Winnipeg, and Mississauga. Culinary experts said they tasted thousands of recipes with different cheeses in pursuit of the perfect “ooey gooey factor.”“We are really strong in the morning ... but we saw that opportunity existed in the afternoon,” said Chief Marketing Officer Hope Bagozzi per CTV.“With single-digit market share for a player of our size, that's really not tapping into the potential in the afternoon.”Restaurants Canada recently named pizza as one of the nation’s most popular items, with 4.5% of restaurant receipts containing pizza. Most of these transactions were made in the afternoon or evening. “There's only so many people they can serve in the morning, but there is operational capacity and some efficiency to be had by getting people in at the other times of day,” according to research firm Circana’s food industry analyst Vince Sgabellone.“Every operator, regardless of whether it's Tims or something else, has their peaks and they're trying to fill other times of day.”Bagozzi said the corporation has been working for a while now on how to prolong Tim Hortons’ prime hours. “We started mapping out where should we go over many years, so not to rush it, but to really think about where we can stretch the brand a little in the afternoon beyond what people expect of Tims today,” she said. “I think anybody who is in the food space is obviously competing with us for a visit from a guest for sure,” said Bagozzi.“Whether you're popping in for lunch or dinner or on the weekend, I think we're well-situated.”
