Late on a Wednesday morning, an industry savant treated a roomful of restaurant-chain executives to an explanation of his business philosophy. This is the sort of guy who flies in private jets and has serious need of estate planning, with a $4-billion chain in his charge. Yet here’s the magic Ron Shaich said he’d learned from building Panera Bread: Aim for richer lives and a better society, not bigger profits.
Two weeks later, students at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education were completing their foodservice curriculum with a walk-through of the ventures they hoped to start after graduation. By design, these were formal business plans, presented to a panel of industry vets who gently assessed both the ideas and the appropriateness of the presentation. Of the five students who aired their ideas on the day I served as a greybeard, all but one pledged that their businesses would deliver societal benefits along with dollar-and-cents returns.
A stellar success and a handful of aspirants just starting out: They hail from opposing ends of the experience spectrum, but they share a view of what a restaurant business should be. With that mindset evident at both poles, is there any doubt it’ll seep into the mainstream of the business?
There are ample signs that it’s happening already, as you’ll see in our upcoming issue. And more keep coming. This week, for instance, Chipotle scolded the Food & Drug Administration for its regulatory stance on the use of pesticides on food crops. The one-time McDonald’s holding said point-blank that it wants the agency to take a harder line on processes that boost yields and hence temper food costs. It’s just not good for farm sustainability, the fast-food chain said in a press release.
This is no longer Kumbaya stuff. Chipotle and Panera are big corporations owned by Wall Street. It’s not that they’ve veered left toward the nearest ashram. It’s that a broader, more responsible sensibility is shifting into the business world, restaurants included.
You’ll learn in our May issue about Panera’s embrace of this broader-minded strain of capitalism. But how about the students and their business plans?
Here’s how they’re hoping to meld a social consciousness with an old-fashioned profit motive:
Katy Severson, who drove around the country before culinary school to learn regional cuisines firsthand, wants to open a gastropub, The Mayflower, where she can feature the best of what she sampled. “Food has a history and a soul,” she explains in her business plan. “This philosophy will be reflected in the way The Mayflower operates in every facet: from the way we source our food and how that food is treated before it sits on our plates, to the way we treat our staff, to the way we decorate our restaurants, plate our food, and most importantly treat our customers.”
She’d penciled out a pro-forma P&L that allowed for healthcare coverage for employees. “I have experience with not getting benefits,” she explained to her classmates and the judging panel.
Mitchell Dorsey intends to feature only “responsibly sourced” foods in Burg Inn, the farm-to-fork restaurant he plans to open in East Williamsburg, a gentrifying corner of Brooklyn.
Sergio Gutierrez plans to showcase aspiring local musicians in his La Maja, one of the community ties he’s planning for the Monterey, Mexico, gastropub.
A classmate planning a Brooklyn tapas bar pledged that it would be “not just another business in the area, but also a part of [the] local community and its needs.”
Using local ingredients, previously the flag signaling a socially conscious restaurant, was the rule for all the student presenters, not the exception.
Not surprisingly, before Shaich spoke at our Restaurant Leadership Conference, another presenter was asked about the viability of chains purchasing locally.
The industry has sufficiently tempered its cheap-and-easy sourcing mindset to shift local purchasing into the industry consciousness.
All signs say it’s just the beginning of a change in attitudes.
Showing posts with label Ron Shaich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ron Shaich. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, February 15, 2010
What's in Panera's oven, Grasshopper?
After Ron Schaich resigns this May as CEO of Panera Bread, maybe he’ll grow a long white beard and sit atop a mountain somewhere, dispensing wisdom to chain execs who make the climb. Consider the profundities he uttered after Panera posted the sort of fourth-quarter results that would’ve prompted whispers of steroid use if this were baseball.
On the sales impact of operations: “Though operations are never given credit for driving sales, I am convinced we would not be having the success we are without improved operations,” said the Wise One. (That success, by the way: comp sales increases of 8.4% for company stores and 9% for franchised units for the first six weeks of 2010, even with bad weather depressing intake by an estimated 4%.)
On the zen of catering: “In my view our weakness in catering [during the first half of 2009] was a good thing. It forced our team to determine what really mattered in building catering sales.” Shaich noted to investors that 2010 catering sales are running 17% year to date above the comparable period’s for 2009.
On the addition of dinner-type items, like the new Mac and Cheese and a salmon-topped salad: “People often make this mistake. They think of the evening business as dinner. We don’t. We think of the evening business as lunch in the evening. Panera is never going to be in the business of serving what would be considered classically casual dining fare for date night.”
Shaich also offered a few glimpses into Panera’s future, including the introduction of a new customer loyalty program in company-operated units in April, and the possibility of licensing its name to retail products. He noted that a Panera-brand soup is already being sold on an experimental basis by Costco, one of 30 to 50 tests currently underway for the chain.
Thanks to Seekingalpha.com for making available a transcript of Panera’s fourth-quarter conference call. It spared me from having to scale a mountain.
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On the sales impact of operations: “Though operations are never given credit for driving sales, I am convinced we would not be having the success we are without improved operations,” said the Wise One. (That success, by the way: comp sales increases of 8.4% for company stores and 9% for franchised units for the first six weeks of 2010, even with bad weather depressing intake by an estimated 4%.)
On the zen of catering: “In my view our weakness in catering [during the first half of 2009] was a good thing. It forced our team to determine what really mattered in building catering sales.” Shaich noted to investors that 2010 catering sales are running 17% year to date above the comparable period’s for 2009.
On the addition of dinner-type items, like the new Mac and Cheese and a salmon-topped salad: “People often make this mistake. They think of the evening business as dinner. We don’t. We think of the evening business as lunch in the evening. Panera is never going to be in the business of serving what would be considered classically casual dining fare for date night.”
Shaich also offered a few glimpses into Panera’s future, including the introduction of a new customer loyalty program in company-operated units in April, and the possibility of licensing its name to retail products. He noted that a Panera-brand soup is already being sold on an experimental basis by Costco, one of 30 to 50 tests currently underway for the chain.
Thanks to Seekingalpha.com for making available a transcript of Panera’s fourth-quarter conference call. It spared me from having to scale a mountain.
.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
A candy dish of info treats
Panera Bread Co. is having a bang-up October, according to CEO Ron Shaich. He told investors yesterday that comp sales for company stores were running 6.9% above last year’s tally for the first 27 days of the month, and franchisees’ sales were tracking at a 6.3% rise.
Meanwhile, the bakery-café chain is busy plotting some significant menu changes. First on the list is the introduction of salmon, both as a sandwich ingredient and a salad component, said Shaich. That will be followed by the revamp of the concept’s panini sandwiches, which are currently pre-made, he said. New presses to be added around the middle of next year will enable units to make the grilled sandwiches to order because of their speed.
Nearer term, units will start merchandising holiday baked goods, from gingerbread men to Panatone to “holly cake,” at their registers.
Three days, three restaurant-chain bankrutpcy filings. Max & Erma’s efforts to secure Ch. 11 protection from creditors has been well-publicized. The bankruptcy of sister operation Damon’s International has been far less so. And largely unnoticed has been the Ch. 11 filing of Ham’s, operator-franchisor of a 20-unit namesake chain in North Carolina and Virginia.
More evidence that the Japanese fast-food market is whack-o: Authorities have reportedly concluded that the manager of a McDonald’s there worked herself to death by logging 20 hours a week of overtime. News reports say she’s one of about 150 people who work to the point of demise in Japan every year.
That news of course follows the introduction of a new Burger King Whopper that features seven beef patties, a tie-in with Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system. There are so many reasons for head-shaking over that one that it doesn’t pay to start.
Kerrii Anderson, the CEO of Wendy’s International during the chain’s final meltdown and subsequent sale, is being paid $175,000 a year to serve on the board of P.F. Chang’s. Anderson also serves on the board of Chiquita Brands International, the banana importer, where she’s paid at least $160,000 a year. And she was expected to make about $4.6 million from the company’s 2008 sale to Triarc, the parent of the once-rival Arby’s fast-food chain. In short, if you’re scheduled to have lunch with her in the near future, there’s no question of who’s paying.
Hotel unions have voted to strike at a handful of properties in both San Francisco and Chicago. It’s not clear whether its coincidental harrumphing or a concerted effort to prove that the union’s strength isn’t being undercut by the economy, as conventional wisdom holds.
Meanwhile, the bakery-café chain is busy plotting some significant menu changes. First on the list is the introduction of salmon, both as a sandwich ingredient and a salad component, said Shaich. That will be followed by the revamp of the concept’s panini sandwiches, which are currently pre-made, he said. New presses to be added around the middle of next year will enable units to make the grilled sandwiches to order because of their speed.
Nearer term, units will start merchandising holiday baked goods, from gingerbread men to Panatone to “holly cake,” at their registers.
Three days, three restaurant-chain bankrutpcy filings. Max & Erma’s efforts to secure Ch. 11 protection from creditors has been well-publicized. The bankruptcy of sister operation Damon’s International has been far less so. And largely unnoticed has been the Ch. 11 filing of Ham’s, operator-franchisor of a 20-unit namesake chain in North Carolina and Virginia.
More evidence that the Japanese fast-food market is whack-o: Authorities have reportedly concluded that the manager of a McDonald’s there worked herself to death by logging 20 hours a week of overtime. News reports say she’s one of about 150 people who work to the point of demise in Japan every year.
That news of course follows the introduction of a new Burger King Whopper that features seven beef patties, a tie-in with Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system. There are so many reasons for head-shaking over that one that it doesn’t pay to start.
Kerrii Anderson, the CEO of Wendy’s International during the chain’s final meltdown and subsequent sale, is being paid $175,000 a year to serve on the board of P.F. Chang’s. Anderson also serves on the board of Chiquita Brands International, the banana importer, where she’s paid at least $160,000 a year. And she was expected to make about $4.6 million from the company’s 2008 sale to Triarc, the parent of the once-rival Arby’s fast-food chain. In short, if you’re scheduled to have lunch with her in the near future, there’s no question of who’s paying.
Hotel unions have voted to strike at a handful of properties in both San Francisco and Chicago. It’s not clear whether its coincidental harrumphing or a concerted effort to prove that the union’s strength isn’t being undercut by the economy, as conventional wisdom holds.
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