Panera Cashes In On Your Diet

I read an interesting article in the newspaper again yesterday. This seems to be becoming a common trend here, and that's a good sign for me to not cancel the newspaper subscription. Anyway, the article was about Panera Bread. It talked about how the company will start listing the calorie content of their menu selections. According to the picture that accompanied the article, this public display of calorie content will appear right along the side of the item on the big sandwich board behind the registers, or wherever they put them. I'm meaning to say, you don't even have to open a menu to see the content.

There has been a bit of an uproar in the Nashville area in the last couple months because legislators have been trying to make chain restaurants post their calorie content on their menus so that the tubby Tennesseans can know just how quickly they're killing themselves with their food choices. Couple things about the south I should mention here. 1.) The people down here like to eat. When they eat, they eat a lot. The portion sizes are absolutely unnecessary. We went to an Italian place and the waiter explained to us that the food portions are "southern-style, which means they're enough for two, at least." 2.) They love their chain restaurants. Every time we drive by the Cracker Barrel, the place is packed. Every time. They love their Applebees, Chilis, and Logan's. You dream up unhealthy food in your head, any unhealthy food, and they not only eat it, they eat a shit-ton of it.

So, since everyone knows this, they the city wanted to post the calorie content. I say do it, but you wouldn't believe the uproar it caused. Guilt-tripping people into making better choices is at least getting someone to make a better choice.

Back to what I was talking about at the beginning, Panera is posting their calorie content on their menus. Good idea. But in the article, the Scott Davis, the company's Chief Concept Officer is quoted as saying "So, when you look at making a choice between a soup with 100 calories and a sandwich with 300 or 400 calories, it puts it pretty clearly what's in your best interest."

I'll tell you what's in the best interest of Panera. From what I have come to learn, a bowl of soup at Panera would cost you $3.29 to $4.49. I assume that price is ridiculously high, in the way that they would generate more profit from selling a bowl of soup than a turkey sandwich. So when you look at the menu and see that the soup is cheaper and better for you than the sandwich, you'll chose the soup and the company cashes in.

WELL PLAYED PANERA!!! Make yourself look like you're taking responsibility, when you really want to sell more soup. A double win for a smart company. Now to be honest, I am only assuming the company will make more pennies on the dollar on a bowl of soup than on a sandwich, and I don't have the facts. But just knowing that soup is generally cheaper to produce than a sandwich (it's mostly water, how can that be a higher cost to produce) makes me believe that this is clearly the reason to push the soup.