Panera Bread currently operates 2,190 cafés across the US | Photo credit: Panera Bread

Panera Bread is laying off staff at its support centres in Massachusetts as part of a bid to streamline operations and cut costs ahead of a long-anticipated IPO.  
 

José Alberto Dueñas, CEO of parent company Panera Brands, said in a memo to staff on 1 October 2024 that Panera Bread was reshaping its support centres by reducing and reassigning roles – but did not specify how many job cuts would be made across its two sites in St. Louis and Newton. 

In the memo seen by Restaurant Business, Dueñas said that the business needed to become ‘simpler, nimbler, and faster than ever before’. 

“As we evolve and grow, so must our ways of working. We must change how we operate to remove silos and simplify leadership reporting lines to make faster decisions and drive more consistent execution,” he wrote. 

The layoffs will fall on corporate-level workers on support teams, but franchisees and store-level staff will not be affected. 

Dueñas became Panera Brands CEO in May 2023 as the JAB Holding Company-backed coffee and food-to-go group resurrected plans for a future public listing.  
 

The following November, Panera Bread announced plans to cut approximately 300 of its 1,800 corporate staff, citing the need for greater efficiency and a simplified operating model. The Missouri-based food-to-go and coffee chain has also closed two fresh dough manufacturing facilities within the last 12 months, with a third unit in Georgia set to shutter in November 2024. 

Founded in 1987, Panera Bread was a public company until 2017, when it was acquired and taken private by Luxembourg-based private equity firm JAB Holding in a $7.16bn deal. The business was merged into fast-casual platform Panera Brands in August 2021, alongside the Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bros. Bagels chains. 

Panera Bread currently operates 2,190 cafés across the US, making it the third largest branded coffee chain by outlets behind Starbucks and Dunkin’, which operate more than 16,700 and 9,650 stores respectively.