Panera Essay

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MGMT706 | Panera Bread | Case Study | | Chenghe Ren | 2014/2/4 | | Panera Bread Case Study Panera Bread Company (PB) began as Au Bon Pain Company in 1981 operating on the east coast of the USA. In 1993 Au Bon Pain Company purchased St. Louis Bread Company, which was comprised of 20 bakery-cafes in the St. Louis area. From the years 1993 to 1997, the bakery-cafe names changed to Panera Bread. In 1999, Au Bon Pain Company sold all business units except for Panera and the company was renamed Panera Bread Company. Panera Bread Company is one of the businesses in the US Food Indusrty / bakery-cafe chain. Since it starts, it has grown significantly and has acquired a name for producing quality natural foods though in the initial periods. It has been more than 10 years, since this company was formed. PB started with a modest 50 million USD investment in 1999 and the year 2006 saw a growth of 17 in business with earnings reaching up to $5 million. Since then, slowly but steadily, it has gained a substantial amount of market share in the natural food segment and has been the market leader in this category. Neighborhoods and cities all around the country are enjoying a tradition of freshly baked artisan breads from Panera Bread bakery-cafes. A driving force behind Panera Bread was to create “a premium specialty bakery and café experience to urban workers and suburban dwellers” (Thompson, Strickland, & Gamble, 2008, pC-87). Heading into 2007, Panera Bread Company’s market presence was expanding rather swiftly. “Between January 1999 and December 2006, close to 850 additional Panera Bread backery-cafés were opened, some company owned and some franchised. Panera Bread reported sales of $829 million and a net income of $58.8 million in 2006. Sales at franchised-operated Panera Bread bakery cafés totaled $1.2 billion in 2006” (Thompson, Strickland, &

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