Taco Bell adding breakfast biscuits

Taco Bell is sticking with the playbook that helped it muscle into the breakfast business last year: Take a breakfast sandwich, and put it in a taco.

The fast-food chain will introduce a new line of Biscuit Tacos, which wrap taco-shaped biscuits around fillings such as chicken and gravy, at its more than 6,000 U.S. restaurants on Thursday as part of an expanded morning menu.

Breakfast traffic at U.S. restaurants has grown for four years straight, and fast-food chains have been trying to take market share from McDonald's, the morning leader.

Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands, joined the fray about a year ago with waffle tacos, egg burritos and the A.M. Crunchwrap. Breakfast now accounts for about 6 percent of Taco Bell's sales, and the new items are designed to draw customers away from rivals, said Brian Niccol, Taco Bell's chief executive officer.

'We have a lot of Taco Bell users who are already eating breakfast in the food-food industry,' Niccol said in an interview. 'We still have a big opportunity on getting people aware that Taco Bell is open for breakfast.'

For McDonald's, the maker of the Egg McMuffin, breakfast accounts for about 25 percent of the company's sales. Taco Bell has taken aim at the Egg McMuffin in advertisements, suggesting the sandwich is outdated.

Taco Bell has been trying to gain market share in other parts of the day by emphasizing food innovations such as its Doritos Locos Tacos, whose shells are flavored like the popular Frito-Lay brand chip.

With the introduction of the new breakfast biscuits, Taco Bell is retiring the waffle taco after about a year on the menu. The new Biscuit Tacos will be sold for a suggested price of $2.49.