The Fast Food Industry Has Grown Over The Past Years, And

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).

Many people believe that the first fast food restaurant was a McDonald’s, but contrary to popular belief, the history of fast food did not begin at the same time as the history of McDonald’s. According to Katie Colburn’s article “The History of Fast Food in America,” the name and location of the first fast food restaurant is lost to history. There is some evidence, however that it began in Ancient Rome. The Urban living in Rome included multi-storied apartment buildings that has little to no cooking area. Therefore, such things like “street vendors and walk-up restaurants fed large segments of the populace” (Colburn). In this situation, fast food seems very harmless and convenient, but as I have learned over the semester so

In the article, Why Investing in Fast Food May Be a Good Thing, Amy Domini begins with advocating for the Slow Food movement. However, her position changes when she poses the rhetorical question, “Why then do I find myself investing in fast-food companies?”

In the United States, the food retail industry is absolutely massive. According to Statista, this industry brings in nearly 5.27 trillion dollars annually and 594.4 billion of that is from grocery store sales. In this market, the 20-ton gorilla in the room is Walmart, racking in nearly 20% of the entire market at around 118 billion dollars in 2013 according to the Harvard Business School case study. Following Walmart, Kroger and Costco own the biggest next largest slices bringing in 76 billion and 71 billion respectively. In this highly competitive market that has some of the smallest margins of any industry it can be tough to get ahead and even tougher to grow. However, Trader Joe’s has managed to pierce what was once a very small world

A key aspect of Panera Bread’s business that protects the company from direct competition in the fast food industry is their product niche, artisan fast food. Fast food chains are often criticized for offering unhealthy foods. But, Panera Bread focuses on a higher nutritional value in their products. Dine in restaurants are very susceptible to drops in consumer spending, so Panera Bread’s

The majority of Americans enjoy fast food like bees enjoy their honey. Fast food is hard not to love due to families experiencing fast paced days, parents who work more than 20 hours a week, and having children with picky appetites can be rough. For most American families, it can be a challenge to not consider eating fast food more than once a week. The fast food industry has grown tremendously through the years. The one restaurant that is known all over the world for their golden arches and their big macs is McDonalds. With knowledge and personal experiences, I can say that McDonalds is by far the worst fast food restaurant in America. I believe this due to how unhealthy the food is for our bodies, the disturbing facts about the happy meals, the poor service, and the non-cleanliness of the restaurant.

Schlosser wants to emphasize the consequences of fast food restaurants and how it is changing the culture of the people in America, developing into a more unhealthy lifestyle. The author’s appeals to ethos shows the readers that he shares a lot of common beliefs that other Americans have, this gets the reader's attention due to their similar ideals such as the complex interplay of social, economic, and technological forces that determine what people eat transforming not only the culture of food but also their lifestyle and environment in a negative way.

More than an exposé of the fast-food industry, Chew on This is explicit about why kids need to be informed. The authors profile real teens whose lives have been affected by fast food. They talk to an eighteen-year-old boy who decides to have gastric bypass surgery; a twelve-year-old girl in Alaska who launched a "Stop the Pop" campaign to remove soda machines from her school; a teenage boy who helped unionize the McDonald's franchise where he worked — the first to do so — only to see the restaurant close shortly after; and two sisters living on a traditional ranch.

Panera Bread has established itself as one of the most popular, fast growing “bakery-café” restaurants in the United States as well as in Canada. With 1,800 locations in 45 states, the franchise appears to be unstoppable. This in part is due to the superior customer service experience that keeps customers coming back time and time again. Just to give you an example, in 2012; the most recent year that data is available, Panera Bread brought in an astounding $2.13 billion in revenue, about $1 billion more than its revenue in 2008.

The generic competitive strategy that Panera best fits is broad differentiation. This is primarily because Panera sought to be the first choice for patrons looking for fresh-baked goods, a sandwich, soup, a salad or a beverage in a pleasing environment. In this platform Panera has set their eyes on people who may not necessarily be looking for an expensive meal, but might also not want cheap, fast food but instead are looking for a fresh meal that can be enjoyed in a relaxing environment. In this Panera is looking for a

Comparing Panera Bread with rivals with the same kind of meals provided, number of branches, and menus provided within multiple daytimes leads us to the following competitors:

Sheetz is a for-profit company that was founded in 1952 by Bob Sheetz and currently has over 450 locations on the eastern side of The United States (LinkedIn, 2016). Sheetz has everything imaginable from their famous Made-To-Order menu, specialty coffee, alcohol, tobacco products, minimal groceries and more. Their goals are stated on their website, which include being fully committed to customer, employee and community satisfaction (Sheetz Inc., 2013). They want to provide the best convenience store possible and be able to give back to the community and its customers. Sheetz gives back to their customers with the Sheetz Loyalty Program, which gives customers free items after they spend a certain amount and three cents off of gas and they give back to the community through the charities the company established. Sheetz’s target audience is their employees or potential employees, customers including college students, “road warriors, construction workers or soccer moms” (Sheetz Inc., 2013) and the surrounding community.

Panera Bread is considered to be one of the U.S. most successful fast-casual restaurants. The company is one of the revolution makers in the industry of fast food, which managed to transform the traditional image and perception of to-go products that are available at an acceptable price on the market. As its initial founding company was established in 1981, Panera Bread managed to gain up to 4.5 billion USD in sales by the year of 2015, whereas the average sales per one store made up to 2.5 million USD annually (Thompson). Nevertheless, the company that once managed to upgrade bread and pastry into a trend of fast and healthy eating, today is struggling with massive competition on the fast food market. Its previous strategic strengths now became a burden that stops innovation and creativity and does not

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

An important aspect of Panera Bread’s business is its product niche—artisan fast food, also termed “fast casual”. This niche protects the company from direct competition in the fast food industry as well as the casual