Bakery and Bread Talk

For this discussion, I have chosen a company that’s a lunchtime favorite in my office—Panera Bread Company, a steadily-growing national restaurant chain headquartered in Sunset Hills, Missouri. Ron Shaich, the creator of Panera Bread, joined with partner Louis Kane, the founder of the bakery-café chain Au Bon Pain Co., Inc. (ABP). In addition to ABP, Mr. Shaich started a “fast casual” sandwich shop that he eventually named Panera Bread, and once ABP was sold in 1999, Mr. Shaich focused on growing the Panera Bread brand. Within the next 15 years, Panera Bread practiced a slow but steady growth pattern and there are now more in 2,300 Paneras in the United States (Panera Bread Company, 2017).

This Harvard Business case is about two individuals, Ludmilla and Igor, who are the creators of Iggy’s Bread of the World and their determination to their unique mission statement of not only making the highest quality breads with the highest standards of service and integrity but cultivating a caring environment with plenty of communication in order to have a successful growing company. This is evident in their mission statement which states: “We are committed to providing a nurturing and respectful environment at our workplace that fosters cooperation, communication and sense of accomplishment for all employees. We provide tools for growth through education, health benefits and access to alternative medical treatments. We

As mentioned in the case study, Panera Bread Company is known to be one of the leading bakery/café that offers freshly baked pastries and French inspired entrées across various states in the US. However in the recent years, Panera Bread faced a decrease in their usual high growth rate from 9.1% and 12.0% in the year 2000 to merely 0.2% and 0.5% of comparable sales and annualized unit volumes respectively.

What’s the most common adversity of an immigrant? Struggling to cope with embedding oneself into being servant to two masters. The term “masters” used here are figurative objects where two distinct form of societal expectation collide with each other and one can’t completely ignore either side. Sarah, in Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers, as an immigrant, faces adversity to implement her personal pursuits in assimilating with the American Culture against her native culture where the father plays the authoritarian and dictatorial rule in the family. Being servant to two master brings one nowhere but Sarah fights on her stand and brings out the outcome to be otherwise.

The 1920s was a hard and painstaking era in American history. Many family's throughout New York lived in absolute poverty and saved week to week just to make enough to eat and pay the rent. Many Immigrants flooded the streets desperate for work while living conditions were harsh and many starved. This is just the case of the novel Bread Givers, written by Anzia Yezierska. In this story we follow Sarah Smolinsky, an ambiguous independent Jewish girl "trapped" by her religious traditions. Her story unfolds as she breaks away from her controlling parents and moves to work and go to school for hopes of being a school teacher. Her life is not easy and she must endure countless sacrifices just to get by. With the determination of

The focal point of this is essay is none other than Panera Bread. Louis Kane and Ron Shaich established a bread kitchen bistro called Au Bon Pain Company Inc. in 1981. The organization developed and succeeded through the 1980's and 90's. Saint Louis Bread Company was purchased in 1993 by the association the company already had 20 different locations that covered vast areas of Saint Louis in the first place. Saint Louis Bread Company was at first established by Ken Rosenthal. In May 1999 Panera Bread ventured into a national eatery, Au Bon Pain Co. sold their different chains including Au Bon Pain, which is currently claimed by Compass Group North America. Panera moved its central command to another area in Richmond, Heights Missouri in 2000.

Success is achieved by hard work and dedication. In Anzia Yezierska’s book “Bread Givers” Sara Smolinsky shows how that applied to her life. The author can relate to the story because she was an immigrant from a small Polish village and had to overcome many obstacles to become successful. She rebelled against her parents’ wishes of following the traditional path of a women immigrant and left home at the age of seventeen to live at the Clara de Hirsch home for working girls. The American dream for most female immigrants was the expectation of marriage and motherhood, a factory job, or if they were lucky a salesgirl. As for Sara and Anzia, that was not enough for either of them. The goal of Yezierska in her books were to recreate the

“A loaf of bread in every arm” is the mission statement of Panera Bread Company (Vincelette & Fogarty, 2010, p.1). Panera started as a small bakery under the name Au Bon Pain and grew to one of the largest fast food service companies in the U.S. In 2008 they had the 5th overall rating in the restaurant industry. “Panera Bread is widely recognized for driving the nationwide trend for specialty breads” (Panera Bread, 2011).

Summary statement of the problem: The Panera Bread Company has made a name for itself by offering quality, nutritious meals to its customers. You can eat at Panera Bread without worrying if you are getting a healthy, nutritious meal. With today’s health conscious society this has served the company well. With the rise in other health food type restaurants, the question arises is Panera Bread’s current strategy enough to keep them on top? In order to continue to succeed, Panera Bread needs to branch out into the foreign markets, add some key

This approach has been one of the main competitive advantages of the company that maintained its stores and cafes in a friendly and ambient atmosphere in various locations. The company did not start as a traditional fast food restaurant, but rather as a network of places where people could fulfill their natural instincts with healthy and freshly cooked food with a little higher than average price range. Panera Bread was one of the trend makers of casual-food restaurants, whose vision was entirely different from the typical model of public facilities. All of the locations shared a common design and menu that created a unique environment of the franchise. Moreover, in order to enable high-quality service, the executive team of the company decided to equip all of the bakery’s completely to be capable of making their own products directly to the spots. This fact allowed to reach a certain level of autonomy and reliability of the brand that always managed to deliver and provide the freshest and natural

When examining Panera Bread Company, it possesses several strengths. One of the greatest strengths in providing great bread is the actual menu. Panera prides itself on the commitment to the quality and reliability of its products, which is supported by its focus on creating the menu. With an understanding of customers ' needs Panera has developed an extensive product line to satisfy a variety of tastes. Panera continually adapts the menu in response to seasons and changing customer preferences. For example, it introduced whole grain breads because customers were concerned with consuming good carbohydrates. Each bread product is artisan made in one of the seventeen dough facilities to ensure freshness

Panera Bread’s intention is “to make Panera Bread a nationally recognized brand name and to be the dominant restaurant operator in the specialty bakery-café segment.” Panera experienced competition from many numerous sources in its trade areas. Their competition was with specialty food, casual dining and quick service cafes, bakeries, and restaurant retailers, including national, regional, and locally owned. The competitive factors included location, environment, customer service, price, and quality of products. Panera learned from its competitors, none of its competitors had yet

“Customization of bread types, flavor, toppings and ingredients coupled with fresh, steamed, toasted preparations provide combinations that appeal to almost all consumers” (Tristano in Levin, 2008). Based on the factors and demographic data exposed above the following market needs were identified:

In 1940 in Italy Piera and Pietro Ferrero, decide to transform their small pastry shop in Alba in to a factory. With the desire to make and create new products with state-of-the-art ideas, they son Michelle Ferrero continued development of company and revolutionised food habits of millions of consumers. Thanks to efficient partnership with his wife Maria Franca, he was one of the first manufacturers which have opened production sides and offices abroad. Now company history reached to the third generation, sons of Michelle and Maria Franca worked together at the top of the Group as Managing Directors for more than 10 years. Unfortunately, one of the sons, Pietro Ferrero, tragically died in Africa during humanitarian mission, inspired and driven by him, that aimed to prelaunch the Ferrero Social Enterprises. And now, Giovanni Ferrero continue to run company by himself.

Some of the advantages of my solutions are: the bakery will be able to maintain current operations with room for production expansion, moving to one larger location would eliminate the need for two locations, the bakery can convert existing product in to new retail market that will result in higher profit margins. Expansion will also allow the bakery to look consider and extension of their product line.