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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (32320)	8/17/2000 10:45:01 AM
From: fastcats	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

FWIW - Actually, Au Bon Pain bought St. Louis Bread, got into financial trouble with the ABP piece, sold off ABP and changed the name of the company to Panera. In the process I believe St. Louis/Panera adopted a portion of the ABP business model for the baked goods. All the bakery products sold in the stores are created, flash frozen and shipped from central plants. Therefore, the individual stores do not have to deal with commodities like flour, eggs, sugar, etc. and also don't have to have bakery employees working in the wee hours of the morning when it is difficult to find, supervise and retain help. I attended an AAII-organized presentation and tour of the original ABP frozen dough facility in Boston many years ago and was impressed with the quality of the operation. I believe that a similar high level of quality is one factor that originally attracted ABP to SLB and has been maintained in Panera. Our local Panera store is at least 2 yrs old in a highly competitive location and always seems crowded. Although I am out of PNRA now, I will take a new look. fc