Panera Bread 2012 Annual Report Download - page 10

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family. We strive to offer a memorable experience with superior customer service. Our associates are passionate about sharing
their expertise and commitment with our customers. We strive to achieve what we call Concept Essence, our blueprint for attracting
and retaining our customers that we believe differentiates us from our competitors. Concept Essence begins with artisan bread,
quality products, and a warm, friendly, comfortable environment. It calls for each of our bakery-cafes to be a place customers can
trust to serve high quality food. Bread is our passion, soul, and expertise, and serves as the platform that makes all of our other
food special.
We believe our competitive strengths include more than just great food at the right price. We are committed to creating an ambiance
in our bakery-cafes and a culture within Panera that is warm, inviting, and embracing. We design each bakery-cafe to provide a
distinctive environment, in many cases using fixtures and materials complementary to the neighborhood location of the bakery-
cafe as a way to engage customers. The distinctive design and environment of our bakery-cafes offer an oasis from the rush of
daily life, where our associates are trained to greet our customers by name and have the skills, expertise, and personalities to make
each visit a delight. Many of our bakery-cafes incorporate the warmth of a fireplace and cozy seating areas or outdoor cafe seating,
which facilitate the use of our bakery-cafes as a gathering spot. Our bakery-cafes are designed to visually reinforce the distinctive
difference between our bakery-cafes and other bakery-cafes and restaurants. In addition, we believe that our MyPanera® loyalty
program, which we launched in the fiscal year ended December 28, 2010, or fiscal 2010, allows us to build deeper relationships
with our customers and entice them to return to our bakery-cafes.
Our menu, operating systems, design, and real estate strategy allow us to compete successfully in several segments of the restaurant
business: breakfast, lunch, gathering place, dinner, and take home, through both on-premise sales and off-premise Panera Catering®.
We compete with specialty food, casual dining, and quick-service restaurant retailers, including national, regional, and locally-
owned restaurants. Our competitors vary across different dayparts. We understand people choose restaurants depending on
individual food preferences and mood. Our goal is to be the first choice for those customers craving a baked good or breakfast
sandwich, soup, salad, a hot sandwich, or a hot or frozen specialty drink.
Panera Catering is a nation-wide catering service that provides breakfast assortments, sandwiches, salads, soups, drinks, and bakery
items using the same high-quality, fresh ingredients enjoyed in our bakery-cafes. Panera Catering is supported by a national sales
infrastructure that includes an on-line ordering system, and we believe it represents a meaningful growth opportunity for our
business.
Menu
Our value-oriented menu is designed to provide our customers with fairly priced products built on the strength of our bakery
expertise. We feature a menu containing proprietary items prepared with high-quality, fresh ingredients, including our fresh-from-
the-field romaine lettuce and tomatoes and our antibiotic-free chicken and roasted turkey, as well as unique recipes and toppings
designed to provide appealing, flavorful products that we believe our customers crave. We include caloric information on our
menu boards and printed menus in all of our Company-owned bakery-cafes.
Our key menu groups are daily baked goods, including a variety of freshly baked bagels, breads, muffins, scones, rolls, and sweet
goods, made-to-order sandwiches on freshly baked breads, hearty, unique soups and side items, freshly prepared and hand-tossed
salads, and custom roasted coffees and cafe beverages, such as hot or cold espresso and cappuccino drinks and smoothies.
We regularly review and innovate our menu offerings to feature new taste profiles we believe our customers crave. We seek to
continuously improve our products, or develop new ones, such as our improved Roasted Turkey and Cranberry Panini, our Big
Kid Grilled Cheese, and our Steak Balsamico Panini.
Product rollouts are integrated into periodic or seasonal menu rotations, referred to as “celebrations”. In our first celebration of
2012, we introduced the Mediterranean Salmon Salad and returned our Thai Chopped Chicken Salad to the menu. The Cuban
Chicken Panini and Steak and Egg Breakfast Sandwich were also added to help build on the success of our lunch and breakfast
entrees in our second celebration. In our third celebration of 2012, our popular seasonal Strawberry Poppyseed with Chicken
Salad returned to our menu along with the new Chopped Chicken Cobb with Avocado Salad and Roasted Turkey and Avocado
BLT Sandwich. In our fourth celebration, we introduced the Roasted Turkey and Cranberry Panini and returned our Roasted
Turkey Harvest Salad to the menu, which featured antibiotic-free roasted turkey. In our final celebration of the year, we introduced
the Ham and Gruyere Breakfast Sandwich and our new Big Kid Grilled Cheese Sandwich, while featuring past favorites such as
the Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad and Chocolate Pecan Babka bread.
Operational Excellence
We believe that operational excellence is the most important element of Panera Warmth and that without strong execution and
operational skills, it is difficult to build and maintain a strong relationship with our customers. We strive to improve the quality