MILAN – Panera Bread is changing its breakfasts to target customers looking for convenience and quality. On Monday, the 2,300-unit brand launched a new strategy intended to heat up the breakfast wars, and drive occasions into one of its lagging dayparts. Panera is targeting two categories: Convenience and quality, and doing so with fresh menu items, an elevated coffee platform, and technology that supports all of it.
The revamped breakfast menu, which also includes a new line of hot coffee, comes about four months after Panera Bread expanded its in-house delivery program to include breakfast.
Since then, morning delivery has expanded from nearly 400 locations to 624 cafes, the St. Louis-based bakery-cafe chain said Monday.
Panera is owned by JAB Holding Company, that also owns Keurig, Dr Pepper and JDE coffee brands.
“Our focus on breakfast isn’t just about a single item or category—it’s about looking at the market and bridging a gap for guests. People are compromising between convenience and quality in the morning, and we know that’s a problem Panera can help solve,” said Panera CEO Blaine Hurst in a release. “Craveable, clean, high-quality menu options made easily accessible by digital and channel access is what has propelled our lunch business forward. Now we are taking that powerful combination to breakfast, giving our guest even more of what they want, when and where they want it.”
Since January, the chain has been upgrading its hot coffee stations with new equipment to improve quality, a process that should be completed by mid-summer.
Panera is beefing up its coffee program as well, now offering cold brew in three varieties: black, Madagascar Vanilla cream cold brew and Madagascar Vanilla almond cold brew. In the coming months, the chain, whose parent company also owns Peet’s and Caribou Coffee, will add two new flavors, light roast and dark roast, to its self-serve coffee station.
