Sounding the Dinner ‘Bell’ for Busy Families

In a move to capture more dinner sales, Taco Bell Corp. today is expected to roll out a line of larger menu items targeted to busy parents.

The so-called Grande Meals feature 10 tacos or bean burritos with nachos and a Mexican-style pizza. The meals are priced at $9.99, significantly less than the cost of buying the products separately, the company said.

Targeting busy parents marks a shift for the nation’s largest Mexican fast-food chain, which is based in Irvine.

Its popular television ads developed by TBWA Chiat/Day, which feature a talking Chihuahua, have been a hit with young men looking for affordable fast food. New national spots that begin airing Sunday also will feature the dog.

The new items “play off a trend,” said Taco Bell spokesman Peter Stack, saying Americans are taking more food out and eating it at home. “We can bundle our food a lot more conveniently than a lot of other fast food.”

Grande Meals are packaged in containers that will keep the food hot for the trip home from the restaurant, Stack said. The meals also will be available during lunch time, when the chain’s 7,000 stores do the bulk of their sales.

“Most [fast-food] business is still before 2 in the afternoon,” said Ron Paul, who heads Technomic, a Chicago consulting firm that tracks the food industry. Still, “consumers are quite tolerant and acceptable of dinner choices,” he said, and Mexican food is often associated with dinner.

Mothers age 25 to 49 make up the primary target audience of new ads for Grande Meals. One commercial features the Chihuahua on a public bus. When he spots a working mom in her minivan with a Grande Meal perched on her front seat, a chase begins.

Taco Bell is owned by the nation’s second-largest restaurant company, Louisville-based Tricon Global Restaurants. Technomic expects Tricon, which also operates the Pizza Hut and KFC chains, to post a market-share gain for 1998, largely on sales momentum gained from recent new product introductions, including Taco Bell’s Gordita sandwiches.