Marketers adapt menus to eat-what-I-want-when-I-want trend

— -- Every company that makes or serves food in America has had to digest the same reality: We've become a nation of really weird eaters.

We eat what we want, when we want. No more of this breakfast, lunch and dinner stuff. We snack all day. We casually skip meals. And we want to customize everything we cram into our mouths.

It's as if our social-media habits are going right to our stomachs.

A culture hungry to put its personal stamp on everything it touches is driving some food makers and restaurant operators bonkers. At the same time, it's offering all kinds of opportunities to those willing to sprint ahead of the food curve. Nowhere is this trend more palpable than with Millennials.

"Eating weird is the new normal," says Shawn LaPean, executive director of Cal Dining at UC Berkeley, which serves students 30,000 times daily. "If students eat any square meals per day, it might be one. The rest is filled with snacks and food on the go."

These may seem like quirky, student eating habits, but they're evolving into lifetime traits. The numbers are mind-boggling. At least 35% of the meals eaten by Millennials aren't meals at all, but snacks, reports consultancy The Kruse Company. Four in 10 Millennials snack more than once daily, reports research firm Technomic. And only 5% of all consumers eat three square meals a day, says Technomic.

At UC Berkeley, fewer than three in 10 students are on the school's all-you-can eat meal plan, vs. more than five in 10 a decade ago. But the clearest indication of our cultural meal confusion may be this: More than 30% of all cereal is eaten for meals other than breakfast, Kellogg's reports.

"The idea of a normal day being breakfast, lunch and dinner is a myth," says Ron Paul, president of Technomic.

Perhaps that why 20% of the cookies and apple pies sold by McDonald's are at breakfast — and why one of its biggest "limited time" product roll-outs in 2012 won't be a burger, but McBites, a popcorn-size chicken snack. It's why Dunkin' Donuts sells gobs of Chicken Salad sandwiches at 9 a.m. And why half the products Denny's sells are breakfast items. It's why Kellogg's has marketed Special K Chocolatey Delight and Rice Krispies as after-dinner-snacks. And, it's why 20% of the folks who buy Stonyfield yogurt eat it instead of dinner.

"I don't think my kids have eaten a real meal since last Thanksgiving," laments Stan Frankenthaler, vice president of innovation at Dunkin' Brands, which owns Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins.

Desserts are now eaten any time, sometimes even before breakfast. Lunch and dinner are increasingly combined into "linner." Many consumers insist on breakfast for dinner, forcing restaurants to keep the breakfast grills fired all day to serve "brinner," says Nancy Kruse, president of The Kruse Company, who consults for food companies on our topsy-turvy eating habits.

There are no traditional eating hours anymore, says Wade Thoma, vice president of U.S. menu innovation at McDonald's. "People eat at all strange hours of the day."

This eat-what-I-want-when-I-want trend is changing some of the biggest names in food — from McDonald's to Kraft to Kellogg's to Dunkin' Brands. Most have turned their new product labs and test kitchens on their heads. It's no longer about inventing the next big meal, but about concocting the next big snack.