Panera Bread first national chain to provide calorie counts on menu boards

As someone who likes to be aware of EVERY calorie I take in each day, I am always impressed when a company takes steps to help people make better choices for their health.

Panera Bread recently issued a press release announcing their plans to provide calorie information right on their menu boards.

Below is a partial quote from the release, use the link above to read the entire thing.

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, MO, March 10, 2010 – Panera Bread has announced that it will post calorie information on all Company-owned Panera Bread and Saint Louis Bread Co.® bakery-cafe menu boards by April 2010. The bakery-cafe concept expects franchise-operated locations to follow suit and have calories posted on menu panels by the end of 2010. This would make Panera Bread the first national concept to voluntarily post calorie information on menu boards across the country.

“We are pleased to be the first national concept to provide this level of transparency to customers,” said Scott Davis, Panera’s Chief Concept Officer. “It comes from our commitment to providing nutrition information and wholesome foods our customers can trust.”

This menu labeling effort is part of Panera’s long-standing dedication to providing customers with nutritious choices and the information to make wise decisions for themselves.

“As we’ve been introducing our new menu boards across the country, customers have responded very favorably,” Davis said. “We’ve seen them gravitating towards options that allow them to customize their meals such as our You Pick Two where they can pair smaller portions of our soups, salads or sandwiches to create a meal with fewer calories.”

“This whole initiative prompted us to take an even closer look at our menu offerings,” Davis said. “The result was we improved the nutritional content and ingredients in several of our menu items. We view it as a ‘win-win’ for both our customers and Panera.”

In addition to the calorie information on the menu boards, full nutrition information is available via an innovative nutrition calculator on the company’s web site, www.panerabread.com, where customers can customize their meals and make modifications to fit their preferences. Customers can also find more complete nutrition information in all Panera Bread and Saint Louis Bread Co. bakery-cafes by asking an associate to see a nutritional binder.

note: I was not compensated in any way for this post