Panera Bread in the Chicago Loop in 2006. Panera Bread is an American chain store of bakery-café fast casual restaurants with over 2,000 locations, all of which are in the Panera broccoli cheddar mac and cheese States and Canada.

The company operates as Saint Louis Bread Company in the Greater St. Louis area, where it has over 100 locations. Offerings include bakery items, pasta, salads, sandwiches, soups, and specialty drinks. As of 2020, the menu also includes flatbread pizzas. The company, which until 2021 also owned Au Bon Pain, is owned by JAB Holding Company which is, in turn, owned by the Reimann family of Germany. These, along with Panera’s artisan breads, are typically baked before dawn by an on-staff baker.

During its final 20 years as a public company, from 1997 to 2017, it was the best performing restaurant stock, delivering an 86-fold return to shareholders. Panera was once the largest provider of free Wi-Fi hotspots in the United States. Many locations restrict the duration of free Wi-Fi to 30 or 60 minutes during peak hours. Ken and Linda Rosenthal founded The St.

Louis Bread Company in 1987 with the first location in Kirkwood, Missouri. In 1987, Au Bon Pain changed the company name to Panera, from a word that has roots in the Latin word for “breadbasket” and is identical to the word for “breadbasket” in Spanish and Catalan. It kept its original name for locations in Missouri. In May 1999, Au Bon Pain Co. 78 million, in order to focus on the Panera Bread chain. In 2000, Panera Bread moved its headquarters to Richmond Heights, Missouri.

A class action lawsuit was filed against the company in February 2008, alleging it failed to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s financial well-being, business relationships, and prospects. 75 million to shareholders while admitting no wrongdoing, settling the lawsuit. In November 2010, Panera Bread relocated its headquarters to Sunset Hills while vacating its Richmond Heights headquarters and Brentwood, Missouri offices. The company leased additional space for its headquarters in 2013. In May 2014, Panera unveiled “Panera 2.

0″, a series of integrated technologies including new capabilities for digital ordering, payment, operations, and ultimately, consumption. Panera unveiled its official Food Policy in June 2014, which detailed commitments to clean ingredients, transparency, and a positive impact on the food system. This policy outlines the company’s values and sets a course for continuous improvement. Café locations were rebranded in September 2015 as Panera Bread. On March 23, 2016, Panera opened its 2,000th location, a cafe in Elyria, Ohio. In January 2017, Panera announced its food menu was free of artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives. Panera announced on November 8, 2017, that founder Ron Shaich was stepping down as CEO, and company president Blaine Hurst would take over.

The company also announced the acquisition of Au Bon Pain. Café to Act III Holdings, LLC, owned by Shaich in January 2018. In January 2018, the company formed a consulting business to help restaurants remove artificial ingredients from their menus. On April 2, 2018, Brian Krebs reported that the Panera Bread website had leaked between 7 million and 37 million customer records — including names, email and physical addresses, customer loyalty account numbers, birthdays, and the last four digits of the customers’ credit card numbers — for at least eight months before the site was taken offline. In August 2022, the company announced that it was testing the use of artificial intelligence in its drive-thru lanes via two locations in upstate New York. The company introduced delivery services in May 2018, servicing 897 cities in 43 states, employing its own drivers. According to the company, this created 13,000 jobs.

On October 28, 2020, Panera announced they would add pizza to their menu to increase dinner options for customers. Panera announced on August 25, 2021, that it had merged with Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. In 2010, the company’s nonprofit foundation created Panera Cares, a “Pay what you can” restaurant in its home market of St. CEO Ron Shaich based the idea on an NBC profile of the SAME Cafe in Denver, Colorado. On November 5, 2015, Panera pledged that it would use only cage-free eggs in all of its stores by 2020.

Panera also announced the addition of more plant-based proteins, such as edamame and organic quinoa, to its menu. The Day-End Dough-Nation program provides unsold bread and baked goods to local area hunger relief agencies and charities. 100 million worth of unsold bread and baked goods annually to local organizations in need. Panera also supports events held by nonprofit organizations serving those in need by donating a certificate or fresh bakery products.