Panera Bread turns governed data into operational agility
2,000+
Locations
Across the US and Canada at the time of publication
16,000+
Menu items
Managed across regions and ordering channels
Minutes
To publish operating-hour changes
Versus multiple days before the Data Pantry
< 2 weeks
From idea to live service
Panera Grocery launched on the existing data foundation
What Panera Bread achieved with EBX®
- Changes in minutes, not days: store-hour and availability updates are published in minutes, in scenarios that previously took multiple days.
- A new business model in under two weeks: Panera Grocery went from idea to live service on the existing data foundation.
- One governed Data Pantry feeds point of sale, mobile, web, kiosks and third-party delivery, so business teams make changes through controlled workflows instead of manual handoffs.
Coordinate constantly changing data across channels and locations
Panera’s growth and digital expansion increased dependencies among e-commerce menus, point-of-sale systems, prices, cafe attributes, discounts, taxes, ingredients and vendors. Departments relied heavily on manual processes, separate formats and multiple systems.
Opening locations, changing menus and updating store information could take days or weeks of coordination. Mobile ordering, kiosks, rapid pickup, loyalty and delivery made a central source of governed product and location data increasingly important.
Why Panera Bread chose EBX®
- One system of record to replace custom scripts and spreadsheet-based processes for menu, location, pricing, tax, ingredient and vendor data.
- Business ownership through workflows: non-technical teams maintain cafe attributes, pricing and menu changes without growing IT data-entry teams.
- Validation at the point of entry: rules and approvals catch errors before data reaches point of sale and e-commerce systems.
- Multi-domain on a single platform, so new services such as Panera Grocery reuse the same governed foundation.
“EBX software is helping Panera Bread increase revenue by allowing flexibility of our menu, so when the business comes up with a great menu idea, we can say, yes, instead of saying no.”
— Noel Nitecki, Director of Enterprise Services, Panera Bread
Domains, scale and integration
Domains mastered
- Cafe: attributes for 2,000+ bakery-cafes, including operating hours, drive-thru and catering capabilities, tax jurisdictions and delivery boundaries
- Menu: core items, seasonal offerings, modifiers, ingredients, nutritional information and pricing tiers across retail and catering
- Materials and inventory: suppliers, raw ingredients, internal SKUs, packaging and recipe mappings
Volume and scale
- 135,000+ active price points across store tiers and regional markets
- 16,000+ menu items and 2,000+ locations in the US and Canada
- Store-hour and availability changes published in minutes
Integration points
- Upstream: vendor catalogs, recipe development databases and the corporate ERP
- Downstream: point of sale, the Panera mobile app, online ordering, kiosks, third-party delivery and supply-chain fulfilment
The Panera Data Pantry became a governed distribution point
Panera made data curation a shared business responsibility. Chefs, supply-chain teams, cafe operators and IT defined how information should be owned, checked and distributed. The result was a repeatable way to turn business decisions into consistent updates across channels.
Unify shared data
Shift changes to governed processes
Distribute updates across channels
Reuse the foundation for new services
Faster change across menus, stores and digital services
By the time of the 2021 report, five dedicated people supported roughly 3,000 data changes a week, compared with 30 weekly changes involving 33 people before the data-curation programme. Business ownership and governed processes helped Panera scale its ability to change.
“At Panera, our business partners take responsibility for their data.”
Noel Nitecki, Director of Enterprise Services, Panera Bread
Rapid operational updates
A new business model in under two weeks
Less dependence on manual handoffs
A new business model in 10 days
When the pandemic changed demand in 2020, Panera launched Panera Grocery in just 10 days. Its existing ingredient data and supply chain became the starting point for selling groceries directly to customers. Teams added the product information needed for retail purchases rather than rebuilding the foundation.
The same approach supported curbside pickup, delivery and new menu offerings—connecting decisions in the business with information customers could act on.
One governed data pantry let Panera change menus and store details in minutes and stand up Panera Grocery in under two weeks.
Explore Panera’s data management results
This story draws on the 2021 reports Panera Cooks with Data to Deliver on Service and Satisfied Customers and How its innovative culture of data curation let Panera Bread turn its business model on its head in 10 days. Metrics describe Panera at the time of publication, during the TIBCO period. EBX® is now developed by ON EBX, a Cloud Software Group business unit.
Download the Panera case study (PDF)
Explore product and menu data management
Source reports: 2021.
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