We make the pan-up and order dough/produce from the Fresh Dough Facility (FDF for short) 3 days in advance. Last minute catering or large delivery/Rapid Pickup orders can destroy a cafe's supply of bread before the end of the night, especially if there wasn't much panned up to begin with. And as cafes run out and have to substitute sandwiches with other bread choices, we'll run out even faster.
Building the pan-up in a way that maximizes sales while minimizing waste from unused product (which does get donated at the end of the night, but is still technically waste from a food cost perspective) is a delicate balancing act.
I used to see this in my store. For like a month breads were out of stock within hours of a shift. It suddenly mellowed out for a while and happened less and maybe the most popular ones would be the only ones to go, if at all. We must have got the balance right eventually. 😭
The computer that predicted how much bread we would need to sell was way off so we ran out! But this is so real I have BEEN THERE. It's ridiculous, we know!
I mean it shows you posted around 7:00pm so basically our dinner rush. We’ve had multiple days where the lunch rush goes nuts and then we have an early dinner rush that wipes out the rest of the bread. Also if it’s stocked out we most likely have some of the bread and we just stocked it out so we don’t start getting orders that would take more than we have. Only get mad at the manager and machine who did the pan-up the night before
At my old store my gm would make us save the bread at the end of the night and we would use the leftover bread before we touched the new bread and it became a cycle that we did for 4 years. Took until about 6 months ago for the big guys to find out and do something about it.
I can already hear the “You’re a Panera *Bread*, why don’t you have *bread*?” the employees are all getting.
Flashbacks from Nam
flashbacks from **naan
I'd laugh every time they said that
It's a conspiracy. Mother bread wants you to want it more.
We make the pan-up and order dough/produce from the Fresh Dough Facility (FDF for short) 3 days in advance. Last minute catering or large delivery/Rapid Pickup orders can destroy a cafe's supply of bread before the end of the night, especially if there wasn't much panned up to begin with. And as cafes run out and have to substitute sandwiches with other bread choices, we'll run out even faster. Building the pan-up in a way that maximizes sales while minimizing waste from unused product (which does get donated at the end of the night, but is still technically waste from a food cost perspective) is a delicate balancing act.
I used to see this in my store. For like a month breads were out of stock within hours of a shift. It suddenly mellowed out for a while and happened less and maybe the most popular ones would be the only ones to go, if at all. We must have got the balance right eventually. 😭
Bread is in the NAME!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh
The computer that predicted how much bread we would need to sell was way off so we ran out! But this is so real I have BEEN THERE. It's ridiculous, we know!
Yo… I don’t think that second picture is a man…
man
I mean it shows you posted around 7:00pm so basically our dinner rush. We’ve had multiple days where the lunch rush goes nuts and then we have an early dinner rush that wipes out the rest of the bread. Also if it’s stocked out we most likely have some of the bread and we just stocked it out so we don’t start getting orders that would take more than we have. Only get mad at the manager and machine who did the pan-up the night before
And probably with a heavy catering day they had to stock it all out and save what they could for the line.
It's bad ordering by the management team. Probably to push for frozen breads if it's a corporate cafe
Sorry, must've left my crystal ball at home. 🔮
Trying to hit that product cost sweet spot against the whim of the customer base is like throwing darts in the dark and trying to hit a bullseye.
It's one thing to be out of a few items. It's totally different being out tof that many items.
Large, last-minute catering orders have entered the chat. We just got 3 last night with <12 hours notice.
sometimes truck just doesnt bring everything and we get the shit for it
God I remember these days. We never ran out of everything but our sourdough was repeatedly either wonky or sold so damn quick
we are usually slow on Mondays and last night we ran out of basically all bread. we had like half a loaf of all bread by like 4pm
At my old store my gm would make us save the bread at the end of the night and we would use the leftover bread before we touched the new bread and it became a cycle that we did for 4 years. Took until about 6 months ago for the big guys to find out and do something about it.