Understanding Breadsmith And Its Customers

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 for our market segmentation the concentration will be on teens, young adults, and parents. Since teens don’t typically cook a lot we believe that there should be a chance for success in this area because we are offering quality products at a cheap price. The same could be said about the young adults as they could be new into the work force and looking to get the most food for the price and this is something that we will be able to provide for them. With all of this being said our main focus will still be with parents and families. This is because we want to gain customers at a young age and hope to maintain these customers for the period of their entire lives. If our business is able to obtain life-long customers it is sure to be a success and this is what we are looking for with our business.

Another organizational crisis arose in 1995 when efforts to expand the Saint Louis Bread chain in order to increase brand awareness backfired as consumers favored Saint Louis Bread over its parent company. To solve this conflict, new divisional presidents were created for each chain, and in 1999 Shaich convinced the board of directors to sell all the Au Bon Pain cafes and restructure the Saint Louis Bread chain under the name Panera Bread. Panera’s current organizational structure utilizes vertical integration, with 17 fresh dough facilities that deliver to 1,591 cafes and franchises (“Our History”). Upper level managers now make menu and pricing decisions and overlook the marketing, franchise, concept development, legal, technology, supply chain, and human resource departments (“Organizational Chart”). Lower level

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.

It is desirable to develop demographic and psychographic profiles of these likely consumers (the target audience).

The potential consumer target markets fall into two categories; the segments will be referred to as “Suburban Select” and “Young & Active”.

“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).

For the present, Sprig focuses entirely on consumers who are interested in making healthy dining choices along with busy lifestyles (Solomon, Marshall, & Stuart, 2018). Additionally, their marketing strategy looks to the digital world to drum up customers, therefore, appealing mainly to the millennial generation (Smith, 2011). While these target markets are ones which will be the company’s cash cows, so to say, they are potentially missing out on a few other groups who could expand their growth (Solomon, Marshall, & Stuart, 2018). For instance, older consumers or baby boomers are an excellent target group, another is the groups of people who reside in metropolitan areas. Then again, what could Sprig use as the best method of reaching these two groups of people?

Among the crowded field of casual, quick-service restaurants in America, the distinctive blend of genuine artisan bread and a warm, comfortable atmosphere has given Panera Bread Company a golden opportunity to capture market share and reward shareholders through well-planned growth. With the objective of opening approximately 1,000 more bakery-cafes in the next three years, Panera Bread Company must make prudent strategy decisions about new store locations, supply-chain management and expanded offerings, all the while continuing its above-average earnings per share growth of at least 25 percent per year.

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

The Panera Bread Company began in 1981 as Au Bon Pain Co., Inc. Founded by Ron Shaich and Louis Kane, the company thrived along the east coast of the United States and internationally throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s and became the dominant operator within the bakery-café category. In the early 1990’s, Saint Louis Bread company, a chain of 20 bakery-cafes were acquired by the Au Bon Pain Co. Following this purchase, the company redesigned the newly acquired company and increased unit volumes by 75%. This new concept was named Panera Bread. Top management chose to sell their previous bakery-café known as Au Bon Pain Co. due to the financial and managerial needs of Panera. In order for Panera to become

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

Panera Bread, also called St. Louis Bread Company was founded in 1981. Rated high as a bakery-café restaurant, they serve a variety of breads, soups, and salads. Panera is considered a “quick casual” restaurant offering sit-down dining and catering services. Panera Bread is now a publicly traded company with over 70 locations in 10 states and

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.