Heidi Fallon

Public Relations

Linda Burkley

20 April 2020

Panera Bread and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Panera Bread is a well-known fast food restaurant in the United States. They opened their

first small cookie shop in 1980 and have grown to over 2,000 stores across the nation providing

bakery items and a breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu for their customers. Brands and companies

like Panera have been trying to support the population since the coronavirus pandemic started in

March. Panera is providing curb-side pickup, delivery, and grocery deliver to their customers to

prevent people to people contact. Because this is a global pandemic, everyone is in a state of

crisis. This is the biggest crisis we have seen in recent history, and Panera is taking part in

helping.

According to the Today show on April 13, large food chains are not only providing to-go

meals but also grocery shopping online. Panera is providing fresh food from their pantry to

yours, on April 8 they tweeted “When you want to avoid the stores, we’re making it easier to

stay at home. Now you can order your Panera favorites and groceries for pick-up or Contactless

Delivery. We have the essentials like milk, a variety of breads, yogurt, and fresh produce”. A lot

of the groceries they are providing are what a lot of the grocery stores are running out of. Many

of the big box stores are having a hard time restocking their shelves, because once it gets put on

the shelf it's gone in minutes. I think that Panera is providing a safe and healthy way to get the

groceries they need or the meal they ordered by providing delivery.

 The CEO of Panera Bread, Niren Chaudhary, joined CNBC on March 2 to talk about how

the coronavirus could possibly impact Panera. He said Panera would inform their customers the

precautious that their employees would take to ensure their customers safety. They also would

encourage their customers to use the drive thru, delivery services, or rapid pick to ensure the

employees safety. During this segment, they discussed the requirements that the CDC sent out to

companies, and that Panera would follow all of the rules and require any employee that

suspected getting sick to stay home. One thing that Chaudhary said, was that Panera this past

year has been the best in sales within the past three years, and that just because of the pandemic

they will still provide their customers fresh food during this time of need.

On Panera’s website they are offering to their customers more than just food, but they are

also offering 20% off any gift card purchase. They are also suggesting that those gift card

purchases go to a healthcare worker, teachers, family, or anyone that needs a nice surprise during

this hard time.

Overall, I believe that Panera is offering a lot to the public, even just having delivery

services helps but they are putting it out there that the health and safety of their customers and

employees come first. This time is so unknown because we haven’t had to go through a situation

like this in recent times. The entire world is basically shut down, but Panera Bread is still

running so that we have a warm meal when we need it, or a nice gift for someone that is working

hard.