Panera

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) -Fast-food chain Panera Bread has loosened its standards for animal welfare and so-called clean ingredients in its food ahead of a planned IPO, according to internal company documents seen by Reuters, shaving an estimated $21 million off its annual costs.

Panera has announced its intention to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits by 2050, alongside several intermediate goals for 2025, in a press release Wednesday.

An Ohio franchisee who runs several western Pennsylvania Panera Bread stores has agreed to pay more than $76,000 to settle discrimination claims by current and former black employees.

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Panera Bread has reached the first settlement in a deluge of wrongful death lawsuits that hit the company thanks to its since-discontinued Charged Lemonade beverages, the law firm representing the family told USA TODAY Monday.

Sarah Katz, a 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania student with a heart condition, went into cardiac arrest hours after drinking a Panera Charged Lemonade drink in 2022.

For years now, restaurants have been displaying the nutritional value of their meals on their menus. But did you ever wonder what the carbon footprint of that bowl of Broccoli Cheddar Soup you were eating the other day was? Well, fast-casual chain Panera is now going to tell you.

The purveyor of baked goods, sandwiches, soups and salads announced today that it is now labeling items on its menu that have a low impact on the environment in collaboration with the World Resources Institute.

Panera Bread partnered with the World Research Institute to determine the carbon footprint of producing their ingredients.

Avocado lovers, rejoice—Panera's Baja grain bowl has a low carbon footprint.PRNewsfoto/Panera Bread

Starting today, Panera will include the carbon footprint of each item on its menu based on the ingredients in its recipe. The company partnered with the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global research nonprofit, to estimate the carbon footprint of producing each of the more than 200 ingredients in their food pantry. Low carbon entrees will be specially marked as “Cool Food Meals,” which fall under a maximum threshold of per-meal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions recommended by the WRI to keep you under your daily carbon footprint. In the U.S. and Canada, the maximum threshold for breakfasts is 3.59 kg CO2e/portion and for lunches and dinners it is 5.38 kg CO2e/portion.

A lawsuit was filed in 2018. “During the course of his 11-year employment with Panera, Mr. Valencia was involved in four separate collisions. Despite his troubling driving record, he was still permitted to drive a semi-truck, and Panera did not provide appropriate retraining following the collisions,” said the plaintiff’s attorney Heidi L. Wickstrom at trial.

The Bloomberg article published this week alleged that Greg Flynn, the billionaire chief executive of a restaurant group that operates Panera locations, lobbied Newsom’s top aides “to reconsider whether fast-casual chains such as Panera should be classified as fast food.”

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Greg Flynn, who owns two dozen Panera Bread franchises in California, said he suggested excluding fast-casual restaurants from a bill raising minimum wages for fast-food workers in the state, but was surprised when chains that make and sell bread were specifically exempted from the final legislation.

The confusing exception led to controversy following a Bloomberg article published on Feb. 28 reporting that the "fast-casual" chain Panera Bread had dodged an upcoming minimum-wage increase for fast-food workers in California to $20 an hour. The article connected the "bread exemption" to billionaire Greg Flynn, a frequent donor to California Gov. Gavin Newsom's political campaigns who owns more than two dozen Panera Bread locations in the state.

Armen Keleshian, Michael Cardin, and Paige Cipriani filed their class actions in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The complaints allege the ShinyHunters hacking group breached Panera’s systems and accessed unencrypted customer information including usernames, emails, phone numbers, addresses, and birth dates.

Panera Bread confirmed a data breach after hackers claimed they stole millions of customer records containing contact information. (AP Photo)

stole 14 million records, not data tied to 14 million unique individuals. After reviewing the leaked dataset, researchers now estimate the breach affected approximately 5.1 million unique people. The exposed information includes email addresses along with associated names, phone numbers, and physical addresses. That distinction matters, but it does not eliminate risk. Once stolen data is released publicly, it can spread quickly across criminal forums and be reused for years. 149 MILLION PASSWORDS EXPOSED IN MASSIVE CREDENTIAL LEAK Hackers leaked the data after extortion failed ShinyHunters reportedly attempted to extort Panera Bread before publishing the stolen data. When those efforts failed, the group released a 760MB archive containing millions of customer records on its leak site. This reflects a broader shift in cybercrime. Instead of locking systems with ransomware, many groups now focus on quietly stealing data and threatening public exposure. These attacks are faster, harder to detect, and often just as profitable. ShinyHunters has used similar tactics in other high-profile incidents involving Bumble, Match Group, Crunchbase and other consumer platforms. Lawsuits filed after Panera breach disclosure The breach has already triggered legal fallout. Multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed in U.S. federal court, alleging that Panera failed to adequately protect customer data. The lawsuits claim Panera knew or should have known about security weaknesses and seek damages, improved security practices, and long-term identity theft protection for affected customers. Panera has not publicly commented on the litigation. A troubling pattern for Panera Bread This is not Panera Bread's first major security lapse. In 2018, a cybersecurity researcher revealed that Panera had left millions of customer records exposed online in plain text. That incident later led to lawsuits and settlements. Repeated breaches often point to deeper challenges. Large organizations can struggle to secure cloud services, identity systems, and employee access at scale. When attackers target identity platforms instead of infrastructure, a single mistake can expose millions of records. We reached out to Panera Bread for a comment, but did not hear back before our deadline.  GRUBHUB CONFIRMS DATA BREACH AMID EXTORTION CLAIMS 7 steps you can take to protect yourself following the Panera data breach When a major consumer brand suffers a breach, customers often don't realize the risk until weeks or months later. These steps

In 2010, Panera launched an experiment at a few of their cafes. They told customers: Pay what you can afford. NPR's Planet Money looks at how that experiment turned out.

Panera Bread, a fast-casual chain well-known for its soups, salads, and baked goods, is closing a Massachusetts production facility and laying off more than 90 employees this year.

<table id="DataTables_Table_0"> <thead> <tr><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Cycle</th><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total</th><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Democrats</th><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">% to Dems</th><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">Republicans</th><th rowspan="1" colspan="1">% to Repubs</th></tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2016</td> <td>$18,947</td> <td>$9,612</td> <td>63.09%</td> <td>$5,624</td> <td>36.91%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2014</td> <td>$23,732</td> <td>$1,150</td> <td>5.08%</td> <td>$21,500</td> <td>94.92%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2012</td> <td>$76,610</td> <td>$46,410</td> <td>62.20%</td> <td>$28,200</td> <td>37.80%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2010</td> <td>$23,250</td> <td>$21,000</td> <td>90.32%</td> <td>$2,250</td> <td>9.68%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2008</td> <td>$1,892</td> <td>$1,391</td> <td>73.52%</td> <td>$501</td> <td>26.48%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2004</td> <td>$12,616</td> <td>$7,500</td> <td>59.45%</td> <td>$5,116</td> <td>40.55%</td> </tr><tr> <td>2002</td> <td>$1,000</td> <td>$1,000</td> <td>100.00%</td> <td>$0</td> <td>0.00%</td> </tr><tr> <td>1994</td> <td>$50,500</td> <td>$0</td> <td>0.00%</td> <td>$50,500</td> <td>100.00%</td> </tr></tbody> </table>

The restaurant chain has laid off 399 employees in 2026 as part of the restructure.

The only restaurant on this list without a pick-up window, Panera Bread is still as much a fast-food place as anyone, albeit one where you can convincingly tell yourself the food is, if not healthy, at least further from horrible than a greasy spoon. Save yourself calories with the black bean soup and political guilt knowing that the company's founder and CEO Ronald M. Schaich has given $30,000 to the DNC and $5,000 to Barack Obama this election cycle.

The lawsuit then goes on to describe a series of other discriminatory actions. Among the complaints are that McCoy’s hours were cut, and when she asked why, she was told that she “needed to find God” before returning to her “previous schedule.” She was reportedly docked pay for breaks that she did not take.

Baker Tammy McCoy alleged that one of her supervisors told her, “‘Your hours are being cut until you find God,’” in describing a series of events that ultimately led to her termination. Last week, the arbitrator “resolved this matter on the merits,” a joint status report said; the stipulation and order were filed July 29.

Panera Wants Pagan Worker's Discrimination Suit Arbitrated

A Pennsylvania woman has filed a lawsuit against Panera Bread, alleging that she was discriminated against and fired because of her pagan beliefs.

By Grace Elletson ( July 29, 2024, 7:11 PM EDT) -- A Panera franchisee and a former employee alerted a Pennsylvania federal court Monday that they've agreed to resolve the ex-worker's suit claiming she was harassed out of her job when she disclosed that she practiced neopaganism. . . .

Harris: $28,361

The chain, founded outside Boston in 2008 by Israeli pastry chef Tzurit Or, developed a devoted customer base but also faced backlash. Calls to boycott the chain intensified ahead of the opening of its New York flagship over Or’s Israeli background and claims that a major investor, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich, had donated to Israeli organizations and the IDF. Or said the protests did not damage the company’s bottom line.

Attorneys Brandon Smith, John Smith and Amy Lenceski argued that Panera failed to follow its own protocol to maintain the store’s pathways for safety, making the walkway unreasonably dangerous.