Panera Bread: Strtegic Analysis

The Panera Bread restaurant chain was founded by Ron Shaich and
Louis Kane as Au Bon Pain Co (a Frehch expression for “where
good bread is”) in 1981. After acquiring the St. Louis Bread Co. chain, the Panera Bread concept developed. In 1999 the Au Bon Pan Pain restaurants were sold, and the company put its primary focus on growing the Panera Bread restaurants. Today Panera Bread is a quick-casual restaurant chain. The company owns and franchises 1,362 bakery-cafes as of September 29, 2009, under the Panera Bread, Saint Louis Bread Co., and Paradise Bakery & Café names in 40 states and in Canada.  Among these locations, 575 are Company-owned and 787 are Franchise-operated.
Company highlights include:
* As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Panera Bread scored the highest level of customer loyalty among quick-casual restaurants, according to research conducted by TNS Intersearch.
* J.D. Power and Associates’ 2004 restaurant satisfaction study of 55,000 customers ranked Panera Bread highest among quick-services restaurants in the Midwest and Northeast regions of the United States in all categories, which included environment, meal, service, and cost.

* In 2005, for the fourth consecutive year, Panera Bread was rated among the best of 121 competitors in the Sandleman & Associates national customer satisfaction survey of more than 62,000 consumers. Panera Bread had also won “best of “ awards in nearly every market across 36 states.
(Thompson, Strickland & Gamble, 2010, C-8)
Company Mission
The mission of Panera Bread is to get “a loaf of bread in every arm” and this is being done by “making great bread broadly available to consumers across America.” The company not only bakes more bread each day than any bakery-café concept in the country, but they also provide a welcoming environment that is hard to forget.
‘We are bakers of bread. We are fresh from the oven. We are a symbol of warmth and welcome. We are a simple pleasure, honest and...