Removing Additives From Menu 'Is Not About The Competition': Panera Bread CEO

Following the trend of several food companies before it, Panera Bread Co PNRA announced on Tuesday that it will also remove artificial color, flavours and other additives from its menu. Ron Shaich, Panera CEO, was on CNBC recently to talk about this.

Working On This For A Long Time

Shaich revealed that Panera has been working on going all natural since over a decade. “It all goes back 11 years ago when we were the first restaurant chain in the country to remove from our poultry antibiotics. It continued 6 years ago, we removed all non-naturally occurring trans-fats,” he said.

Panera changed its food policy a year ago and in accordance with that food policy the company now wants to “remove all artificial colors, flavours, preservatives and sweeteners.”

“It’s a no-no list, a 150 odd ingredients which you can be assured will not be in the Panera menu,” Shaich highlighted.

Not Driven By Competition

He refuted the argument that Panera had to anyway do this because most of its competitors were removing such additives from their menus, saying, “No, I wouldn’t say that. Listen this is not about that at all. It’s not about the competition. This comes, something we have been working on for several years.”

The team working on this [has] been working on it for decades. The reality is my kids eat at these restaurants 10-times a week. I am in there 5 to 10-times a week. This is how I want to eat, so it seems to me only logical that’s what I want to do for my guests,” Shaich concluded.