ATHENS UNIVETRSITY OF ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS

Second Assignement:

The PANERA BREAD COMPANY
Tuesday 3rd November 2009
Nom: Prénom: Student ID: Nationality: Sending institution: Email:

BORREWATER Hubert 2090344 French Iéseg (Lille, FR) Hubert.borrewater@gmail.com

Introduction
The Panera Bread company is a bakery-cafés implanted in the united states which is specialized in fresh-dough artisan bakery and quick-service menu selection. The Panera Bread company prizes the high quality of its product and tries to create a very warming and welcoming place where people can feel at home. It has been established in 1981 by Louis Kane and Ronald Shaich. Firstly called Au Bon Pain Company and implemented in the malls, shopping centres and airports all along the East Coast. They have then purchased the Saint-Louis Bread Company and the company has been renamed the Panera Bread Company. Nowadays, The Panera Bread company has more than 1,300 bakery-cafés located in 40 states of the US and in Canada. The Panera Bread Company operates with a system of franchises. Franchises represent 58% of the bakery-cafés.

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What is Panera Bread’s strategy? Which of the five generic competitive strategies discussed in Chapter 5 most closely fit the competitive approach that Panera Bread is taking? What type of competitive advantage is Panera Bread trying to achieve?
The strategy of the Panera Bread Company is to “make great bread broadly available to consumers across the United States.” Make ‘great Bread’ has been performed through fresh-dough artisan bakery. In order to achieve this, they use the best ingredients to make the dough and they train their bakers craft. Make it ‘Broadly available to consumers across the United States’ is achieved firstly with the number of locations all over the United States (more than 1,300 – see the introduction), but also by offering high-quality products at reasonable prices.

The Panera bread company is, like we said before, willing to