Panera Bread appoints new Chief Corporate Affairs Officer

Brooke Buchanan (left) and a range of Panera Bread iced beverages | Photo credit: LinkedIn|Panera Bread

Missouri-based Panera Bread has appointed a new Chief Corporate Affairs Officer as it prepares to navigate a further round of layoffs and ongoing customer lawsuits.
 

Brooke Buchanan, who served as US Lead for Crisis and Risk at public relations giant Edelman from January 2021, will oversee internal and external communications, public affairs, policy and crisis management at the food-to-go and coffee chain.  
 

Buchanan served as National Press Secretary & Senior Advisor to Senator John McCain between 2006-2011 before joining US retail giant Walmart, first as Director of Sustainable Operations and later as Senior Director of Corporate Communications.  

Her public relations experience also includes spells at US retail chains Williams-Sonoma, Whole Foods Market and JCPenney. 

Her appointment comes at a significant time for Panera Bread as it streamlines its workforce ahead of a planned IPO and faces multiple wrongful death lawsuits over the high caffeine content of its Charged Lemonade beverage. 

In November 2023, Panera Bread said it would cut approximately 300 of its 1,800 corporate staff in preparation for a long-awaited public listing. The JAB Holding Company-backed chain conducted a second round of job cuts in October 2024, laying off staff at its support centres in Massachusetts. 

Panera Bread CEO José Alberto Dueñas said the move was part of his plan to make the business ‘simpler, nimbler, and faster than ever before’. 
 

In October 2024, Panera Bread settled the first of four lawsuits relating to its Charged Lemonade, which it introduced to menus in 2022 as an alternative to coffee or energy drinks. 

University of Pennsylvania student Sarah Katz, who had a heart condition, went into cardiac arrest hours after drinking the beverage at a Panera Bread in Pennsylvania in September 2022.

Law firm Kline & Specter, PC, claimed that Panera Bread’s labelling of its Charged Lemonade ‘did not adequately indicate it was highly caffeinated’. The firm noted that a large 30oz Charged Lemonade contained 390mg of caffeine, which ‘far exceeds’ the combined per-ounce contents popular energy drinks, Red Bull and Monster Energy.

The US Food and Drug Administration recommends the average adult can safely consume 400mg of caffeine a day. 

Panera Bread stopped selling Charged Lemonade in May 2024. 

Founded in 1987, Panera Bread currently operates 2,190 cafés across the US. In 2017, the coffee and food-to-go chain was acquired by Luxembourg-based private equity firm JAB Holding for $7.16bn and was merged into fast-casual platform Panera Brands four years later. Minnesota-based coffee chain Caribou Coffee and Colorado-based Einstein Bros. Bagels also sit within the Panera Brands group.