bake - December 2016 - 32

The Omni-Channel Directive
Panera Bread Co. has made a commitment to operating
in an increasingly omni-channel world. The bakery cafe's
actions over the past 15 years have evolved to a point that the
company now competes in four distinct channels as part of
that omni-channel world, according to Ron Shaich, founder,
chairman and chief executive officer.
"At one time Panera was over 60 percent eat-in, but we can
foresee a world in the not-too-distant future in which eat-in,
while continuing to generate relatively stable sales volumes
per cafe, will be about 40 percent of our total sales," he says,
"with the other three channels representing 60 percent or so
of our sales. Ultimately, we've shifted our thinking from a paradigm that used to ask how many new cafes can we open to a
new paradigm that is asking how many high return on investment dollars can we vacuum out of a given zip code."
Shaich believes direct-to-consumer small order delivery
"will ultimately be one of the most powerful channels in
Panera's arsenal."
The ﬁrst channel is the eat-in channel. The eat-in channel was
the original channel upon which Panera was built. Today, the
channel has evolved with the addition of kiosks and the ability
for customers to place orders digitally from the table.

"These four channels, especially
our digitally-enabled channels,
are working and fundamentally
changing our business,"
Ron Shaich, founder, chairman and chief executive officer

The to-go channel was the next channel to be added. It began
as counter-based take-out in Panera bakery cafes, expanded
to drive-thrus, which are available at about 75 percent of

at Home is generating market share gains in categories such

the restaurant chain's locations, and now includes rapid pick

as refrigerated soup and is the channel the company sees as a

up. "We bulked up on our rapid pick up program in the last

material opportunity going forward.

18 months, and it is now one of the largest digitally enabled
to-go programs we know of in the industry," Shaich says.

"These four channels, especially our digitally-enabled channels, are working and fundamentally changing our business,"

The third channel is the delivery channel. Delivery began

he says. "Indeed, we are increasingly selling more food and

several years ago as the delivery of larger order business-to-

serving more customers through new channels than ever

business food for meeting and training sessions, Shaich says,

before. And we expect this will only accelerate as our initia-

but has taken on a new form in recent years as Panera has

tives mature.

built out catering hubs, professionalized its catering operations and moved into direct-to-consumer small order delivery.

Panera opened 11 new bakery cafes during the third quarter
while its franchisees opened nine. As a result, the company

The fourth and ﬁnal channel is Panera at Home, the bakery

operates 2,024 bakery cafes systemwide.

cafe's consumer packaged goods business. Shaich says Panera

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