Louis Bread Co

Louis locations went through major overhaul with the vision to create a specialty cafe© anchored by an authentic, fresh-dough artisan bakery and upscale quick-service menu selections. By 1997 sales volume had increased by 75% and 100+ Stores of SST. Louis Bread Co were opened. Then by the year end the SST. Louis Bread Co.

Was renamed as Pander Bread. In 1998 Ron Isaiah sold Au Bon Pain Brand for $73 Million to Pander Bread and went all in on the Pander Model, with the company then spanning over 180 Locations.

By 2003, Pander Bread was recognized as the market leader of USA in the specialty bread segment and scored the highest level of customer loyalty among Quick Service Restaurants by TENS Interstates Study. In 2004 I. D.

Power & Associates Restaurant Satisfaction Study ranked Pander highest among Sir’s in Midwest ; EN in all categories including environment, meal, service, and cost. In 2005, for the 4th straight year, Pander was the best among 121 competitors according to Sandmen ; Associates National Customer Satisfaction Survey, they also won “Best of” awards in nearly every market across 36 states.

Issues Pander Management needs to make sure customer and stockholders understand the freshness of their ingredients are the best they can offer. The goal of Pander is to provide High Quality, Low Cost food to its consumers, but this is hard to maintain and quite impossible as they grow. In the past, promotional activities have been underused, heavily reliant on word-of-mouth. They should be more prominent as they expand to foreign states.

Developing Brand Awareness by Customer Experience.

Pander plans on increasing the number of outlets and expand to more states but they do not want to compete in terms of price. The existing low-debt financing strategy keeps profitability low. Analysis Industry Analysis using Porter’s Five Forces Buyer Power: High Many restaurant choices for customers. Forces restaurants to differentiate themselves in order to win the customer. Supplier Power: Low Obtained dough from a variety of suppliers.

Numerous suppliers for each ingredient needed and Pander Bread could easily obtain ingredients from another supplier if necessary. Threat of New Entrants: Low Entry barriers are extremely high, because reputation to existing tells is quite high, and it takes a lot of time to gain brand recognition similar to existing brands. Moreover, high costs to start a restaurant and low profit margins also further makes t difficult.. Threat of Substitute Products: High Many restaurants to choose from depending on your preferences Rivalry among existing competitors: High

Industry members pursue differentiation strategies to set themselves apart from rivals. Most restaurants are quick to adapt their menu offerings to changing consumer tastes and preferences.

The norm at many restaurants is to rotate menu selections seasonally and introduce new dishes. It is common for a popular restaurant to lose flavor and confront the realities of dwindling clientele, forcing it to reconcile its menu and dining environment or go out of business. Many restaurants have short lives.

Pander Bread competed with specialty food, casual dining, and quick-service restaurant retailers and the closest competitors were “fast-casual” assistants such as Atlanta Bread Company, Applause’s, Chili’s and Cataracts. Fast- casual restaurants provided quick-service dining but were distinguished in several areas.

Easiness Analysis of Pander Bread using SOOT Analysis Strengths rhea location of Pander placing them in strip malls and urban neighborhoods. Successful in 5 supermarkets such as breakfast, lunch, day time, chill out, light evening fair and take out.

Strong & Loyal Customer Base Fresh, High Quality food with inviting ambiance rhea way that they have set up franchising was a strength for them as a corporation. Meanness Not competitive in terms of price in the dinner segment Other competition may have better choices for dinner and at better prices. Centralized dough production facilities, each store is not self sufficient Opportunities Could earn more profit at dinner if they lowered their prices and stayed really competitive at this meal time.

Since they are the leader in 5 sub markets they can take advantage of this and utilize to their advantage.

Threats There are many other restaurants in the sector of dining. If they don’t do something about their prices for dinner, there are other firms will come in and move ahead of Pander. They might also have to take a look at making their fresh dough at the stores just like they bake the bread at each store because the transportation of fresh dough Nil become increasingly expensive.

Recommendations Try to be established as a Quality Fast Casual Dining by focusing on Ambiance, Service, Quality Menu, Convenience. Pushing Pander more to compete in every meal period Expand Coffee Offerings (seasonal) Focus on expanding Dinner Menu/Service Aim to compete with Applause’s/lolls Difficult due to lack of alcoholic beverages 12%+ of each company’s annual sales Promote the Family Environment Change Financial strategy of ‘Zero Debt’ to “Equity + Debt Financing” strategy